Cine y Profesionalismo Médico: una reflexión ilustrada con cuatro películas de Steven Spielberg

Abstract

We live in an era where outcomes, guidelines, and clinical trials are at the forefront of medical training. Complexity comes mostly from patients, not from diseases. While technical knowledge helps in solving disease-based problems, the patient affected by these diseases remains a real challenge for the practicing doctor. Films provide a multilayered nucleus form which significant learning can take place: they are used as examples to highlight moral dilemmas, and to envision those “intangibles” topics, difficult to teach and to assess, in which ethics, empathy, compassion and professionalism are included. But at the basis of all these learning possibilities reflection is required. In this article we promote a reflection on medical education illustrated with four well known Spielberg’s movies: Amistad (Patient Centered Medicine, Empathy, looking at the individual), Schindler ’s List (Commitment, where are the limits for serving?), Saving Private Ryan (Reflective Practice.  Building a reflective habit for life), Bridge of Spies (Ethics and integrity. Going beyond your duties). Although Spielberg deals frequently with imagination and science fiction, the human factor is probably the best deep message of his movies and represent an outstanding contribution to the education of the human being.