The Doctor
“Magistrate Communication Style”
“Transformation”

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TMGMT 314: Interpersonal Skills in the Workplace
G. Kent Nelson, Ph.D. University of Washington – Tacoma 03 June, 2009
The Doctor Introduction
The Doctor is a film that outlines the ways that doctors around the world think. It is about a doctor who finds out the hard way that there's more to medicine than skill in the operating theater in this emotional drama. The main character is Jack McKee, who is a gifted but arrogant surgeon. He cares little about the emotional welfare of his patients and is little more than a benign stranger to his wife Anne and his son Nicky. He has been suffering from a nagging cough for some time, and when he begins coughing up blood one morning, he finally allows another doctor to take a look at him. The doctor discovers that he has a malignant tumor in his throat that could rob him of the ability to speak, or even kill him. He now becomes a patient instead of a doctor, and learns first hand about the long stretches in the waiting room, the indignity of filling out pointless forms, and the callous attitude of the professional medical community. He also gets to know June, a terminal cancer patient whose joyous embrace of life as her time draws to a close is an inspiration to him.
After recovery, Jack becomes more determined to be a caring healer and strives to be a better husband and father. But his new outlook on life turns former friends into foes, and dislike co-workers in to friends. His fellow surgeon Murray, who wants Jack to lie under oath for him in a major malpractice case becomes an enemy when Jack refuses to testify on his behave at the trail. He also gains a new respect for Eli, an ear-nose-throat man he used to ridicule for his empathetic treatment of his patients, who performed the surgery to safe his ability to speak and voice.
Through out the movie, Jack uses many forms of communication style. In this paper, I will be discussing the transformation process of Jack from not caring about his patients (me, not others) to being sympathetic towards his patients (others and me) and uses the Magistrate Communication Style.
Transformation
Jack starts of treating his patients as objects. He does not care about his patients feelings and doesn’t even bother to get to know their name. Scenes that emphasize his feeling towards his patients were illustrated well in two scenes. First scene was when one of his feeling female patients shows concerns about the scar marks. Instead of explaining to the patient that scars will bee be there and because of it her life was saved, he tell her to tell her husband that she looks like a playboy center piece. The second scene was when he is walking with a group of medical student towards a patient’s room. He instructs his student that a surgeon needs to stay detached. His justification for his reasoning was that a surgeon’s job is to cut and save life. When he walks in to see one of his patients, a relative is visiting the patient, instead of him waiting until the visitor leaves, he makes an inappropriate comment by say, “should we come back later.”
His transformation starts from when he discovers that he has a malignant tumor in his throat that could rob him of the ability to speak. He assumed that since he was a doctor in the hospital, he will be treated like a VIP and his treatment would go quickly and smoothly. During one of his visits to the hospital, he has to fill out all the paperwork as any other patients. He has to wait as long as a regular patient. Another scene was he had requested a private room, and when he went for his appointment he was given a regular room, with no privacy. In simple, throughout his surgery and recovery procedure, he was given no special treatment and was treated as a regular patient. During his transportation to the CAT Scan Room, he was transported in a regular thin gown, like a regular patient.
Another possible trigger was when is given the wrong treatment, and all his doctor say was that she is sorry and bluntly tell him that he has a malignant tumor. Possible triggers could have also being the way he was treated as a patient. He was never explained about the procedures being performed, and always had to ask for the reasoning why a specific procedure was being performed.
But the main trigger for his transformation was when he meets June, patient who has brain cancer. Jack listens to her story about how she was mistreated and how she was diagnosed with brain cancer. June teaches Jack the meaning of life. June tells and shows him how to fight the disease and win, even if you die.
Later in the movie, Jack, while walking with a group of medical student to visit a patient, he asks the student about the patient. When one of the medical students doesn’t know information about the patient, he goes off on him. He now expects the students to know the patient. He expects them to treat them as humans, not objects.
Through his treatment he gains insight on how patients feel. He wants to pass the same information to the medical student, and transforms an ICU room into a treatment room just for them. He has them go through the same treatment as a patient would. He now becomes more caring and thoughtful towards his patients. He understands what they are going through.
Another version of his transformation was when Jack refused to falsely testify at a fellow friend trail. He told Murray that he could not testify at his trail, because if he does, he will speak the truth. He had done his research on the patient and found that Murray was at fault for the patient’s inability to speak. The trigger for this transformation was when the patient locked his keys in the car and Jack goes there to help him.
Magistrate Communication Style
Surgeons have to have the Magistrate Communication Style. They have to be straight forward, but at the same time analytically explain what procedures will be performed and the reasoning for the procedure. From the start to the end of the movie Jack is the symbol for Magistrate Communication Style. Everything was about Jack and Jack only. He was a direct to the point, but he loved to hear himself talk or joke. After he finds out that he has a malignant tumor in his throat, his wife asks him how are “we” doing. His response to that was that we don’t have it. He goes on irate on his wife for simply asking him about his health.
Another example about his communication style was being transported to the CAT Scan Room, he notices two doctors talking about a patient and jumps in to input his medical knowledge and tries to make himself known, and by stating that he does speaks. In one of the scene, when the Radiologist instructs Jack that, they are civil in the Radiation Clinic, his response to that was that, they are very hostile upstairs.
In one of the scenes, he insists on keeping his patients, rather than taking time off to focus on his treatment. When a fellow surgeon asks him to take time off, he response with that he can do his job and keep his appointment, while explaining that he will be only be going for a little while during the day.
In another scene, during his second appointment with the EENT doctor, Jack is instructed that the Radiation is not reducing the size of the tumor. The doctor wants Jack to have surgery and schedule the appointment for surgery which is in the afternoon. Jack does not want to have the appointment in the afternoon and explains his reasoning’s for not have the surgery performed in the afternoon. Jack finally decides not to have this particular doctor perform the surgery. Instead of just telling her and talking his file. He tell the doctor that she does not have a idea for patient feelings
Even at the end of the movie, when Jack can’t talk, he show his demanding style, by insisting that his wife yell at him, not he decorator for the kitchen. Redecorating the kitchen was his idea and he wants the blame for it. He still wants to feel that he is in charge.
Conclusion
Jack uses a Magistrate Communication Style from beginning to the end of the movie. It was always about him not others. But through his medical problems, he transform into caring about his patient and at same time caring about him. By the end his focus switched for legality issue to the real patient issues.