Meet the Filmmaker: Director Carolyn Jones and producer Lisa Frank.
Through powerful and compelling portraits of five nurses, The American Nurse confronts some of the biggest issues facing America – aging, war, poverty, and prisons. Jason Short drives up a creek to reach a home-bound cancer patient in Appalachia. Tonia Faust runs a prison hospice program where inmates serving life sentences care for their fellow inmates as they’re dying. Naomi Cross coaches patient Becky, an ovarian cancer survivor, through the Caesarean delivery of her son. Sister Stephen runs a nursing home filled with goats, sheep, llamas and chickens where the entire nursing staff comes together to sing to a dying resident. And Brian McMillion, an Army veteran and former medic, rehabilitates wounded soldiers returning from war. The American Nurse will very likely change how you think about the challenges of healthcare in America, and about those who are there for us when we are born and die and many times along the way. USA, 2014, 81 minutes.
Director Carolyn Jones and Producer Lisa Frank will particpate in a discussion with military nurse Kevin McGurk and United Hospice of Rockland nurse Danielle Byrnes, RN, moderated by Judi Peacock, MPH, RN, WCC, and Administrator of the Joe Raso Hospice Residence.
Community Partner: United Hospice of Rockland
“elegantly cleareyed” “Tears are almost inevitable.” – Anita Gates, The New York Times
“compassionate and psychologically revealing” John DeFore, The Hollywood Reporter
“With the form so often used to expose horrors, it’s nice to see a documentary about genuine human decency without kitsch. Carolyn Jones’s portrait of five medical caregivers walks us through day-in, day-out sacrifices without ever coming off as sentimental or aggrandizing.” – Heather Baysa, The Village Voice
