Educational Media Reviews Online

Access to health care services is an essential need for many people in the United States, especially for patients living in rural America or those affected by poverty, opioids, and/or substance abuse. This documentary features the professional and personal experience of three medical practitioners Chris, Matt, and Leslie who work in rural New Mexico, where their service area covers 22,000 square miles. The three medical practitioners have personal experiences with addiction and show professionalism, in spite of continuing challenges in providing care.

The challenges highlighted in this documentary are numerous including consistent staff shortage resulting in underserved patients, many who are impoverished or have addictions to drugs or alcohol. Getting access to regular medical care is difficult. There are different ways solutions are introduced by each of these medical professionals that work directly with patients in a pilot program known as Project Echo, outreach to the younger generation to inspire them, or with the professional community for solutions in making professional conference presentations. This shows the different levels of dedication and involvement that medical professionals would have, since health care is a service field.

This documentary also features interviews with different patients and family members of the medical practitioners, so you can see personal narratives and specific challenges that is experienced by Matt, Chris, and Leslie.

The Providers is a good documentary to have for academic libraries where there is health majors and areas of study for medical professional and nursing. It is also good for public libraries to purchase since the opioid issues is such a widespread issue and many topics covered in this documentary shows the impact that there is for multiple people beyond the doctor and patient. Addictions and treatment impacts everyone in a family. It is beneficial if there are other books or media in the collection that relates to this documentary, it is also okay if this DVD is purchased to help with beginning a collection. The reason why the age level is also good for middle grade to watch, is the fact that there are children present in this documentary that gives perspective from the children’s experience with coping these challenging times. This is beneficial for high school students who would want to consider seeking employment as a medical professional and see the duties or responsibility that a medical professional may have.

This documentary has won a number of different awards, and in the end, The Providers can be regarded as a case study, should there be other places of similar backgrounds or is looking to see how health care is completed with the similar challenges. If there is interest in acquiring this documentary, these are other technical notes that would be included. The DVD has captions for the deaf and hard-of hearing, and scene selection. Should there be an interest to view a trailer of this documentary, you can link up to the website’s page and look at the trailer there

Awards

Nationwide Broadcast on PBS's "Independent Lens"; Spotlight on Inspiration Documentary Award, St. Louis International Film Festival; Gold Jury Prize for Best Documentary Feature, Seattle Social Justice Film Festival; Audience Choice Award Best Documentary, Santa Fe Independent Film Festival; Spirit of Activism Award, San Francisco DocFest; Triumph of the Human Spirit Award, Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival; Humanitarian Award (feature documentary), DOCUTAH Film Festival; Humanitarian Spirit Award, Rockport Film Festival; Power of Film Award, Beloit Film Festival