By Suzanne Gordon The three caregivers we meet in The Providers face daunting challenges as they try to deliver medical and mental healthcare to patients in rural New Mexico. Sadly, their struggles are reproduced all over America because for decades the nation has failed to address the problem of delivering healthcare outside of urban and …
Leslie Hayes knew she wanted to become a doctor from a very young age. She was raised in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a community that hosts a national nuclear laboratory and that boasts the highest rate of PhDs per capita in the nation. She came to El Centro, the rural health care network in New …
[UPDATED April 6, 2019: We reached out to filmmakers Laura Green and Anna Moot-Levin to gather their thoughts on why they titled their film The Providers.] The filmmaking team behind the Independent Lens documentary The Providers live on opposite coasts from each other — Laura Green in San Francisco, Anna Moot-Levin in Brooklyn — but they came …
While HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence to the same extent it was 20 years ago, 50,000 Americans are diagnosed with HIV each year, and the disparities are startling when broken down by race, gender, and region. As reflected in June Cross’s film Wilhemina’s War [premieres February 29; check local listings], which puts a human …
Did you know that November is National Family Caregiver Month? (Here are some suggested ways of thanking the caregivers in your life.) The care of aging adults is a problem we all face, especially with more and more Americans living longer, but caring for adults with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD) makes the aging process all the more …
In his new Independent Lens documentary The Waiting Room (premiering on PBS Monday night 10/21 at 10 PM), Peter Nicks presents a more intimate portrait of a debate so entrenched in Washington and around the nation that Congress just narrowly missed a self-inflicted shutdown over it. In true vérité format, The Waiting Room offers a non-partisan …
A collection of bonus clips via The Waiting Room filmmaker Peter Nicks and his “Storytelling Project,” featuring more hospital staff and patients on their experiences with health and health care, to accompany the feature documentary premiering on PBS on October 21.
In conjunction with the Independent Lens premiere of The Waiting Room on PBS [Monday, October 21 at 10 PM; check local listings], we’ve culled some revealing stats about American health care today. Clearly this is a hot topic, and a hot-button topic for that matter, but regardless of what your personal viewpoint is on the …
With health care on the minds of all Americans these days and with discussions happening for better and for worse, it’s easy to lose sight of the human element. The Waiting Room goes a long way toward changing that. Read our exclusive interview with its filmmaker Peter Nicks on the challenges of shooting in a busy hospital and on what influenced him.
