Documentary Depicts Challenges of Caregiving

The UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine, in association with the UCSF Department of Neurological Surgery, has created a documentary about family caregiving for loved ones with aggressive forms of brain cancer. UCSF teamed with Open Eye Pictures, an award-winning, nonprofit production company, to create The Caregivers, a film that follows patients and families as they struggle through an unmapped course within a complex and imperfect medical system. It reveals the complexities and challenges of caregiving and patient-doctor-caregiver communications. The goal of the Caregivers Project, a collaboration between UCSF's Osher Center for Integrative Medicine and the Department of Neurological Surgery, is to help improve the quality of life for caregivers, and hence the quality of patient survivorship, by encouraging mutual empathy and respect and reducing emotional and physical stress. Families of brain tumor patients face many challenges in providing ongoing care of their loved ones. The Caregivers Project provides family members with useful information and details the struggles of health care providers in meeting the needs of patients and their families. Mitchel Berger, MD, chair and professor of neurological surgery at UCSF, served as project adviser for the film. Berger, who is featured in the film, points out that health care providers are often so focused on treating the patients that the trials and tribulations of family caregivers are often overlooked. Berger describes this realization as an "awakening" for him, and he began meeting with UCSF neurosurgery residents to talk about ways to consider the needs of caregivers. Viewers often find the film very moving. Alexander K. Smith, MD, a fellow in general internal medicine at Harvard Medical School and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, shared his reflections on the film: "My dad died of a glioblastoma multiforme while I was in medical school. Having lived the experience both from the caregiver perspective and the medical side, I think you hit just the right balance of showing both the needs of the caregivers and the demands on physicians. This balance gives the movie authenticity and authority with medical people, like me, to strengthen their commitment to caring for patients and caregivers." The film can be used for medical education for all clinicians in training, including medical, nursing, and social work students and residents, as well as clinician-educators. The film also is relevant for family caregivers (independently or in group settings), and can be used by them for discussion and to provide insight that might help them in their own roles. The film also can be used for professional development training within organizations to educate human resources and employee health specialists about the impact that stresses of family caregiving may have on employee well-being. In addition, this film can been used as an internal training tool for health industry specialists. The Caregivers will air on KQED Channel 9 and KQED HD on Saturday, Oct. 4, at 6 p.m., and will be repeated on KQED World on Sunday, Oct. 5, at 8 p.m. and Monday, Oct. 6, at 2 a.m. Please visit KQED-TV for more scheduling information. The Caregivers is also available on UCTV and on the Osher Center website.