The Temple of Healing: Reflections from a Physician at the Movies

Dans's essay traces a moral shift in society and medicine through a review of cinematic representations of medicine in film from the 1960s and '70s to the present. He argues that medicine, like society, is groping to achieve a consensus on values. He voices concern over the movement from an adherence to the Hippocratic oath to an increase in moral pluralism, suggesting that the uncoupling of medicine from its ancient codes has altered the physician/patient relationship from a sacred covenant to a business contract.