I really liked this movie. William Hurt was excellent as a cold surgeon, who although excellent as his job, didn't have a lot of beside manner. He didn't realize how he came across to patients and didn't seem to care. However, it all changes when he is diagnosed with cancer and becomes the patient.

The movie also deals with the relationship he has with his family. He doesn't have the emotional connections with his wife and son and in fact doesn't even reveal to her that he is sick at first. He also befriends a fellow cancer patient and has feelings for her and his wife notices.

When the physician does become the patient, William Hurt finally realizes what patients experience and this makes him a better person, dad, husband and doctor. The movie is uplifting, not overly sentimental and the acting is phenomenal. I love anything Mr. Hurt is in and he doesn't disappoint with his performance.

This film truly caught my attention, I just watched on TV, and was really impressed. Why? well, we could say that there probably are a lot of these films (almost a sub-genre within drama movies) when regarding to the tone, characters, existential conflicts and ideal-moral messages but I think this one stands aside.

The story is very simple, the acting is great but realistic, the film is shot in a very classical style, the conflicts are there, my point is that despite we (as an audience) have all the elements at the surface, this film runs more deep and has more layers than it seems at first sight. The true power or engine here is the script, which hides beneath the great cast and wonderful directing, it allows us to think a predictable-known story in a symbolic (and political) way, opening a lot of cognitive doors that can take us apart from the plain meaning to different new levels of thinking these very same elements.

For instance, we have a "doctor" who is actually tortured by the burocratics politics of the very same hospital he works for, and finds himself becoming, first a patient, afterwards something less than human (although not like Kafka's Gregor) because of the medical protocol doctors tend to follow. Also, he meets a woman who was sentenced to die by her medical insurance company (another Kafka theme, the destiny or conviction taken upon ourselves). So he ends up discovering the truth of his reality and himself, waking from his dream-death (as an institutionalized being) reforging his identity and humanity. It's interesting to find here two important's elements such as the mythological way of understanding living as a dream and death as life, like a new state of mind only perceived after dying; and second, the battle the hero in modern days fights for, his self-independency.

This is obviously a political allegory against the powers that rules our lives and fates, and can-must be thought in any other line of work, but got to admit that gains another dimension by being themselves DOCTORS, and not caring at all about us, just only money motivated like a sales man would.

The Doctor is much more complex and I hope people would give this film a chance, it's the exact opposite and in my opinion a future reference to what any medical(TV or film) story should aim for.

p.s.: Mike Nichol's Regarding Henry it's in a similar level than this one.

San Francisco surgeon Jack McKee (William Hurt) has been a jerk his whole life. He never refers to his patients by their names and apparently never knows why they're in the hospital. In short, Jack's the opposite of Patch Adams. But then, he becomes a patient, and finds out what it's really like to be on the other side. Admittedly, this is sort of a cliché (and maybe sappy at times). But still, it's a good look at one man's change.

I will say that what Jack does at the end looked a little unrealistic; I doubt that he went that far in real life. But even so, I still say that the movie is worth seeing. Not a masterpiece by any stretch, but important. Also starring Christine Lahti, Charlie Korsmo, Mandy Patinkin and Adam Arkin.