Medical school graduate to show film featured on PBS Point of View series

Monsen with hospice worker Jim Brigham and patient. Photo by David Wilson.

Dr. Maren Monsen, an independent film producer and director who is a graduate of the UW School of Medicine, will be on campus next week for a seminar and showing of her most recent film, “The Vanishing Line.” The film was shown as part of the PBS series “POV” (Point of View) last year.

Monsen’s presentation here, which is sponsored by the Department of Medical History and Ethics, will be from noon to 1:15 p.m., Wednesday, Feb. 10, in Hogness Auditorium of the Health Sciences Center. She will be discussing her work as a filmmaker and taking questions after the film is shown.

Monsen graduated from the UW School of Medicine in 1991 and is now based at the Stanford University Center for Biomedical Ethics. While she was a medical student, she received a Rotary Fellowship to attend the London International Film School. After returning to medical school, she produced a 30-minute documentary, “Where the Highway Ends: Rural Healthcare in Crisis,” which received a regional Emmy Award.

After a residency in emergency medicine at Stanford, she produced another film, “Grave Words,” which received first place in the American Medical Association Film Festival.

“The Vanishing Line,” which she will show here, chronicles her own journey as a physician toward understanding the art and issues of dying. The film was chosen from more than 600 entries as one of the 10 to be broadcast on the POV series and also won first place at the Nashville Independent Film Festival.

Monsen also has an interest in cross-cultural health care, and has worked at the East Asian Refugee Clinic in Seattle and the Mission Neighborhood Health Center in San Francisco. She has also volunteered as a physician in Haiti and in Mexico.

She will be on campus next week as a guest faculty member for a two-day seminar, “Caring for Patients with Life-Threatening Illness,” a segment of the Introduction to Clinical Medicine course. The purpose of this seminar, led by Dr. Thomas McCormick, senior lecturer in medical history and ethics, is to help prepare second-year medical students for care of dying patients. ¶

Claire Dietz