Anesthesia in the Movies

There aren't a lot of flattering, never mind realistic, portrayals of anesthetists and anesthesiologists on film. Actually, there aren't a lot of portrayals period. 

Gregory Peck once played a priest who had to give a kid some drop ether (or maybe it was chloroform?) in the 1944 film The Keys of the Kingdom (based on the novel by A.J. Cronin). That was a pretty good scene.  Actually, the whole movie was good.

Anesthesia care in another film based on an A.J. Cronin novel, The Citadel (1938), was not ideal (see time index 7:33 of this clip).  But I guess we can't really blame the anesthetist, who had to work with no monitors, no endotracheal tube, no resuscitation protocols, and seemingly no I.V. access.  I think there's a lot about medicine back in those days, culturally and scientifically, as depicted in that film, that would shock us today.

The poor little female Asian anesthesiologist in Spiderman 2 met with a bad end. Doc Ock got her.

Then there's the scandalous anesthesiologist on Grey's Anatomy, Dr. Milton, who abandoned a patient on the table during a bomb threat in an episode which aired on February 5, 2006. I can't say what I would have done in his shoes, being a parent myself, but I HOPE I would have had the courage and integrity not to desert my patient. As was pointed out in a letter from the American Society of Anesthesiologists to the show's producer, "Of all medical specialists, an anesthesiologist is probably the least likely to fall apart or 'bail out' in a crisis situation."

And of course there's the movie Awake. The ASA wasn't too happy about that one either. Movie producer Joana Vicente was quoted to have said, "Awake will do to surgery what Jaws did to swimming in the ocean." Hmm. Awake. Jaws. Awake. Jaws. I'm not seeing the comparison. Has anyone actually seen Awake? How was it?

And who remembers this quote by the ghost of Jamie in Truly, Madly, Deeply, played by Alan Rickman? "Dying's all right...it's the general anesthetic I didn't like."  Bummer.

Last night I saw a movie in which anesthesiologists were actually a) written into the script and b) depicted fairly realistically. The film was Gifted Hands: the Ben Carson Story starring Cuba Gooding, Jr. as Dr. Carson. Although the transitions between time periods struck me as a bit choppy, the film really held my interest, especially during the most compelling moments in the O.R., which I thought were surprisingly well done.

The person playing the anesthesiologist trying to coax a young girl to open her eyes after a hemispherectomy for epilepsy had just the right manner and posture about him. Later, the depiction of the intricate separation of the German craniopagus twins that made headlines in the 1980's had us leaning forward in our seats, eyes glued to the screen. I was especially impressed that they bothered to show a moment in which Dr. Carson checked in with the anesthesia team to verify the stability of his patients and also to show those team members hastily re-hanging various bags of fluid, manually stabilizing the endotracheal tubes, and doing other important "busy work" as the separation of the twins was under way.

The 22-hour operation took not only a lot of daring but also a lot of "thinking outside the box" and preparation. And not just the preparation of a good set-up or of years of experience in medicine: the teams rehearsed, and rehearsed together. I think these were the crucial differences that allowed this operation to be a success where others had failed. I found this heart-stopping article about a more recent separation of conjoined twins that gives a detailed, vivid, blow-by-blow account of the operation. It's a worthwhile read - the story of a modern medical marvel, with all the associated highs and lows, made possible not only because of technology and talent but also because of the miracle of smooth, well-practiced teamwork.  Have a look.