Film review

Year: 2020

Director: Paul Michael Angell

Language: English

Rating: Entertaining 4/5 | Informative 4/5 | Inspiring 5/5

“Part cowboy, part naturalist, part lots of other things—he is in many ways a baffling man.” So begins Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story, a documentary focused on the remarkable life of Stan Brock and his founding of the charity Remote Area Medical (RAM).

The film charts Stan Brock’s life from humble beginnings in Preston, Lancashire to living as a vaquero, a barefoot cowboy, amongst the Wapishana people in what was then British Guiana. A chance meeting with a TV producer from Chicago eventually led to Brock presenting a hit wildlife TV show and starring in Hollywood films. But by 1985, he decided to take a different path, founding RAM with the intention of providing basic healthcare to people living in the most remote areas of the world. 

Brock’s unusual early career may be what draws the viewer in, and understandably constitutes a significant chunk of the documentary, but he is the first to point out that it’s “not important really”. Indeed, any admiration one has for his resilience as a young man is tainted by his complicity in a colonial administration and his former disregard for the Wapishana people (which he later regrets). Instead, it is what he and the 135,000 volunteer clinicians have achieved through RAM that is truly extraordinary. 

Despite its original intention to serve remote regions of the world, RAM soon turned its focus to the 50 million people without access to healthcare in the world’s richest country: the United States (US). Although RAM operates on a shoestring budget and Brock takes no salary, it has delivered free healthcare to nearly one million Americans since its inception. Scenes from RAM’s pop-up field hospitals in some of the most impoverished areas of the US, including the gratitude with which RAM patients receive their care, are moving to witness. 

While the issues raised in Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story won’t be news to anyone even vaguely familiar with the US healthcare crisis, it’s hard not to be shocked by the image of hundreds of people camping for days on the pavement so that they can receive basic medical care. The film powerfully showcases the human impact of the politicisation of healthcare and serves as an urgent reminder of the fragility and inadequacy of US healthcare reform. RAM patient Dee Bailey puts it best when she exclaims:

Medicine Man: The Stan Brock Story is being screened live at the Global Health Film Festival on Wednesday 1 December, followed by a panel discussion including the director, Paul Michael Angell. Global Health Film Festival is the annual flagship event of Global Health Film, a UK charity promoting the power of storytelling in global health. More information and tickets can be found on their website.