“The Chaplain & The Doctor”

Director: Dr. Jessica Zitter

Synopsis:

Betty Clark is an 80-year-old, African American chaplain on staff at The Wilma Chan Highland Hospital Campus, the level-one trauma center in Oakland, California. Jessica Zitter is a white Jewish physician who has been Betty’s colleague on the Palliative Care service for over a decade. The two women are an unlikely team: chaplains and doctors do not usually pair up within the hierarchical and siloed halls of the hospital. Dr. Zitter, trained to believe in medical interventions and science, was not seeking a relationship with a chaplain. And Chaplain Clark never expected the doctor to take interest in her work. But with time, the two women’s shared values and history overcome the forces that keep them apart, and they go on to do their best work together.

Review:

As someone who works in a hospital, I REALLY enjoyed this documentary. It follows chaplain Betty Clark and Dr. Jessica Zitter as they visit a number of patients who are dying or who have diseases such as lupus or sickle cell anemia.

Some of the most harrowing scenes come from the pair trying to help a lupus patient who was scheduled for a biopsy. They discover that no doctor is actually on campus or available to even do the procedure. She is clearly upset because she doesn’t have any money for childcare to come back another day. I love that this documentary is highlighting all of these inequities in the healthcare system. How can someone be scheduled for a biopsy and no one is there to perform it? They can’t send the patient to another hospital? And don’t get me started on the reality of childcare.

Another great aspect of the film is just the teamwork between Clark and Zitter. Both come from different ethnic backgrounds, different age groups, different religions. But they put their patients first. It’s almost as if their work bonded them first, before anything else.

The documentary is so well done that you really start caring about Betty and Jessica. There were two incidents in the film that made my heart drop out of my chest. Without giving much away, both experience life altering events through the course of the film and their resilience shows.

For me, documentaries have a lull right smack dab in the middle of them. It’s weird. But this one? Nah. I was engrossed the entire time.

**** out of *****

“The Chaplain & The Doctor” will screen Tuesday, May 12th at The Charles in Baltimore! Buy tix