The Caregivers

Although The Caregivers, produced by the Osher Center for Integrative Medicine (UC, San Francisco), is ostensibly designed to help new physicians interact with brain cancer patients and their relatives, this documentary would also be an appropriate resource for other conditions, as well as for relatives called upon to act as caregivers, given the overall emphasis here on the need for doctors to include patients and family members in treatment discussions. Interweaving observations from medical residents and members of the teaching faculty, The Caregivers follows the stories of four patients and their families: a Los Angeles man whose wife and daughter must deal with his deteriorating condition; a young Pennsylvania wife whose burly husband supports her through a succession of treatments; a teacher whose aging parents have been her primary caregivers since her surgery eight years earlier; and a San Francisco woman whose husband must learn to handle her seizures. The thread running throughout here is that family members are often insufficiently informed by physicians about various situations that might arise in the course of the illness or treatment. As a film for encouraging more attention to these concerns on the part of doctors, The Caregivers will be a useful teaching tool, but it also presents a moving portrait of the families profiled. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)