The part that disturbed me the most...
were the callous doctors. She was just another case to gather data for them, not a human being. I wonder how realistic that is in cancer wards.
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MovieChat Forums > Wit (2001) Discussion > The part that disturbed me the most...
I know, and when Vivian asks the doctor about fear, he asks "afraid of what?"...he's so COMPLETELY obtuse for all his scientific intellectualism. He's completely emotionally retarded and has the worst bedside manner.
shareTrue, but he intends to be a research doctor, not a clinical doctor, and he himself complains about the absurdity the clinical requirement. I completely agree. I've been the victim of such "care" myself, and certainly don't look forward to any more of it.
It's same with universities who take research professors and give them a teaching requirement. Why should students have to suffer through their feeble attempts at teaching, when they paid good money to be educated by someone competent?
People become competent through experience and practice though, otherwise no one would get anywhere. You can't get experience without practice, but you can't practice without experience?
The doctors were horrible in the film, but there are horrible people in all occupations. They were only horrible because the film required them to be. They were there to tug at the heartstrings, which they did successfully ;)
I'm actually performing this piece as we speak and I'm playing th part of Jason. I originally thought of him as an emotionally dead character, whose only interest is in research and while part of that might be true I have come to view him differently through the rehearsals. Firstly, as someone has said, Jason wants to be a researcher. He has no interest in being a doctor with face to face patient care, and there is no way he should be that kind of doctor because he is not suited to it. Jason isn't a bad person though. He isn't emtoionally dead, just stunted - he has no concept of empathy and because of that he obviously struggles to interact with Vivian on the level she wants. We have to remember though that Vivian was like this herself until she found that she needed compassion and that intelligence and wit wasn't enough. Jason is basically Vivian when she was younger.
We chastise medical professionals for treating patients as though they were on a conveyor belt, and indeed we should because no-one should suffer the treatment that Vivian does here, but do we ever stop to think about it from the doctors' perspective? Doctors (and indeed nurses) have to treat tens of patients at a time and have to make life or death decisions about each of them. If the treatment benefits from keeping an emotional diistance between the doctor and the patient, then so be it. I would rather that a doctor could save my life than be my friend.
The play ends rather differently then the film too. Jason has a realisation that this body on the table was a person and that he has ignored their final wishes. Vivian has obviously changed over the course of the play, but she never gets to benefit from this change as she passes, but the play makes sure that this doesn't go to waste and it is implied that Jason has grown from this experience and will use the example of Vivian to become a better doctor.
I don't understand the question and I won't respond to it
Callous doctors are not that hard to find. I'm a cancer survivor & I could say "been there, done that".
For the past 7 years, I have encounered at least 20 different specialists. They came in different sizes & forms, character & personality wise. There are those who were devoted, callous, arrogant, career-oriented, etc ... The majority considered themselves a class above all ( unmatched in intelligence, except their peers ). It looked like it never occurred to them that beside medical doctors, people could be as intelligent as they are or even more. It reached to a point that made me thought that I should have shown them my degree along with the hospital & insurance cards. Boy, how they talked down to me.
I know for a fact that when students were about to enter medical school, they answered the appropriate questions, at the entrance interview, like how devoted & determined they were to save humanity. The truth is another story.
When I developed a rare illness because of the treatment, I was nothing more than a rare specimen for them to study. One to advance his career, others to further their quest of medical knowledge. I never looked for friends in all of my doctors, but treating patients as nothing more than a commodity is just the worst. Lucky for me, devoted doctors are not hard to find either.
I thought he was paralleling Emma Thomopson's character's attitude toward her students. Remember that scene where he says his grandma died and she doesn't even really look at him, telling him the paper was due when it was due?
I thought that maybe Kelekian had surreptitiously or indirectly told Jason to ignore Vivian's DNR order if he got the opportunity to resuscitate her. After all, he wasn't above keeping Vivian's terminal status from her. In fact, he didn't even tell her what her prognosis would have been without treatment. All he knew was that she was an ideal candidate for his research and he had to say (or neglect to say) whatever he needed to to get her on board.
shareYes, that's a very good point which Vivian herself makes at one time. She even shares a joke with Kelekian about students during grand rounds.
But I have to agree about most doctors, especially cancer doctors. My father died from cancer several years ago, and his doctors were very detached. On the one hand, it's hard to blame them since they have to watch their patients die the most horrible and drawn-out deaths. And it must be so defeating since there's nothing "modern" medicine can do about it. But it seems too many of them succumb to the easy escape of clinical detachment.