With years of training required to become a doctor, Nanaimo's Simon Moore never thought filmmaking would play such a big part in his career.
In order to finish his family medicine training, Moore took on a research project for the University of British Columbia Department of Family Medicine.
“I was inspired by previous colleagues who have done projects that are actually in use in hospitals today, so I wasn’t interested in doing a survey that was going to end up under a stack of papers somewhere.”
Interested in patient safety, medical education, and wanting to leave something behind to help others, Moore sought out advice and latched on to the idea of a video on medical-office emergencies.
“Studies show that people will have a sick child or sick loved one and will bring them to the closest doctor’s office,” he said. “People might have a heart attack, allergic reaction or have trouble breathing and offices are not nearly well prepared as hospitals to deal with emergencies.”
Moore wrote a script highlighting the recommended equipment an office should have and the training staff should undertake.
The only thing he didn’t have was a camera to film the project.
But on a visit to a coffee shop, Moore spotted a Nanaimo Film Group poster looking for people interested in filmmaking, editing and screenwriting.
“I wasn’t interested in those things, but I thought they could help me out with the loan of a camera,” he said.
He received a lot more than that.
An e-mail to the group produced a response within an hour from Aaron Colyn, offering to film the entire project.
“He was very prepared, had the script all laid out and when he told me the plan and what it was for, I figured that was a really good cause,” said Colyn.
Filming took place one afternoon in February and Colyn also volunteered to edit the film.
The final result was posted online Feb. 14 at www.officeemergencies.ca. The six-minute video also includes a survey for doctors to provide feedback.
Moore said the results have been inspiring.
“Nine out of 10 doctors say the video is relevant to their family practice office and a similar amount say the video is going to enhance patient care,” he said. “I let the B.C. Medical Association know about the video and they published a link to it in their medical journal, as did the Canadian Medical Association.”
He also had to meet UBC’s strict ethics requirements.
Moore hopes to have the video and survey published in a medical journal, but it would first have to go through a peer-review process where other physicians critically analyze it.
Colleagues and family members helped with the acting and Moore said it has been a fun project that is receiving survey responses from around the world.
“There wasn’t much stress other than trying to find a video camera,” he said. “I was lucky. I got a lot more than just a video camera from the Nanaimo Film Group.”