A Highland Hospital doctor is debuting a new documentary at the San Francisco Film Festival this weekend, offering an intimate look at the relationships between the hospital’s chaplain and its doctors and patients.
Filmed over seven years, “The Chaplain and the Doctor” follows filmmaker and physician Dr. Jessica Zitter and Alameda Health System Chaplain Betty Clark in their efforts to provide care to patients of the East Bay’s only Level I Trauma Center.
“If you can figure out ways that you can cross professional silos, barriers between patients and doctors, working with colleagues from different backgrounds – those make us stronger and better,” Zitter said in an interview with Bay Area News Group. “That’s rare in medicine, and it’s allowed me to open up and become a stronger healer.”
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“The Chaplain and the Doctor” is Zitter’s first feature-length film, where she attempts to compare and contrast the secular approach to medicine with Clark’s interactions and meditations on patient care. Through that effort, Zitter said, medical professionals can approach a patient more holistically and remove the “labels and judgments” against patients.
Though filming of the documentary began in 2018, Zitter said its origins came from her relationship with Clark in the seven years prior. Zitter said she found herself taking audio recordings of Clark while she spoke with patients, and she noticed how the chaplain’s work transformed her approach to patient care.
Highland Hospital presented a unique setting for Zitter’s inquiry into patient care. As a “safety net” medical center that offers service to low-income individuals, the uninsured and other vulnerable populations, Highland Hospital was a unique venue to explore the intersection between medical and spiritual health care for patients, she said.
“The original title was going to be the ‘Chaplain of Oakland,’” Zitter said. “I wasn’t going to be in the film. But I needed to do it, and Betty (Clarks)’s glad I did. When you see yourself on camera, even if you knew why you were making the film, things become clearer.”
Zitter’s film crew received rare access to Highland Hospital’s trauma wing, which she acknowledged was a “brave and vulnerable” decision by administrators to permit. Alameda Health System CEO James Jackson said their collaboration on film couldn’t have been made anywhere else.
“We all know that health is more than medicine; it is also spiritual, emotional, and social. Yet, too often, health care fails to affirm the full humanity of both patients and providers,” Jackson said in a press release.
“The Chaplain & The Doctor” will debut at The Marina Theater in San Francisco on April 21, with a second showing slated for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive on April 23. Zitter said she hopes that audiences embrace collaboration across professions and embrace the perspectives different from their own.
“It’s been very liberating to me to drop silos and barriers in a new way. It’s allowed me to feel like a better healer, and I wasn’t able to do that with the medical perspective alone,” Zitter said. “That’s a message for this day and our times: celebrating difference is something that can make us all stronger.”
