Remote Area Medical

During the U.S. debate about healthcare reform, the media—reporters and news crews and filmmakers—failed to put a human face on what it means to not have access to healthcare.  REMOTE AREA MEDICAL fills that gap—it is a film about people, not policy. Focusing on a single three-day clinic held in the Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, REMOTE AREA MEDICAL affords us an insider’s perspective on the ebb and flow of the event—from the tense 3:30 a.m. ticket distribution that determines who gets seen to the routine check-ups that take dramatic turns for the worse, to the risky means to which some patients resort for pain relief. We meet a doctor who also drives an 18-wheeler, a denture maker who moonlights as a jeweler, and the organization’s founder, Stan Brock, who first imagined Remote Area Medical while living as a cowboy in the Amazon rainforest, hundreds of miles from the nearest doctor. But it is the extraordinary stories of the patients, desperate for medical attention, that create a lasting impression about the state of modern health care in America.

Learning Areas:

Advocacy for health and health education
Assessment of individual and community needs for health education
Communication and informatics
Implementation of health education strategies, interventions and programs
Provision of health care to the public
Public health or related public policy

Learning Objectives:
Discuss public perception of the causes and impacts of the lack of access to healthcare. Demonstrate the need for more volunteers and donations for Remote Area Medical to fund their fifteen annual free clinics throughout the United States. Identify trained volunteers to work with the Remote Area Medical organization. Compare to many partisan documentaries and discuss how this film can work for progressive and conservative organizations alike, chipping away at the divisiveness that is obstructing progress on healthcare policy.

Keyword(s): Public health or related public policy, Provision of health care to the public

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: Jeff Reichert, with co-director Farihah Zaman, is the director of REMOTE AREA MEDICAL. They are currently at work on an outreach campaign for the film designed to bring awareness to the healthcare debate and inspire more volunteers for the Remote Area Medical organization.
Any relevant financial relationships? No

I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.

Back to: 4321.0: APHA Film Festival - U.S. Session 2