Remarks on Hippocrates, the Film

A total of 8 people attended the club to watch Hippocrates: Diary of a French Doctor. Two of those left soon after the beginning, because, they said they couldn’t stomach the hospital scenes. I thought they meant the ER scenes were disturbing, but ER scenes probably never affect the film rating. On reflecting, there is something wrong with this movie rating.

As advertised, the film was rated PG. However, I was surprised that elements of many hospital scenes in the film had a pornographic nature that should have rated at R. Perhaps a dozen scenes showing the doctors’ lounge, a bathroom stall, a rec room, and also two dorm rooms for interns in the hospital, had hand-drawn comic graffiti of sex and genitalia on the walls in the background . None of this was indicated by the given rating or the film trailer. I apologize for trusting the rating system and not pre-screening the film.

Such pornographic graffiti in the workplace would be illegal in America, but I wonder if that is disregarded in Paris. Other disturbing things about the movie were the flippant behaviors of doctors, chain-smoking , foul-mouthed, and lying to cover for their coworkers’ medical mistakes. Imagine here in America the doctors’ lounge hosting a wild masquerade party, a doctor fighting with another doctor about pulling the plug on a patient thought meant to be revived when the case files weren’t even consulted, or a doctor getting drunk and smashing equipment to protest of a colleague’s dismissal. There must be a reason the critics said it was a dark satire about the French medical system.

Worst of all, imagine America’s vaunted medical professionals going on strike to protest the dismissal of a colleague for a breach of protocol. According to the Hippocratic Oath, a doctor should not withhold medical treatment to a patient in need. Thing is, a managerial wizard cannot drum up enough doctors to replace a hospital-ful of fired striking doctors.

To top off the many irksome issues of this movie, Hippocrates is interning at the hospital led by his own father. The Father is a close lookalike to Surgeon General Fauci! Is this supposed to mean Fauci is like the character in the film? Covering for bad doctors, ignoring essential equipment in disrepair? Lying to patients and covering the lies with more lies? Never fear, the hospital is under a new manager, a dot com entrepreneur who knows how to cut corners, but little about medical practice.

This movie should discourage people from expecting more than a free euthanasia as a medical procedure in Paris.