BECA Produces Health Care!

How do you feel about watching a surgery? Does it make you a little green around the edges? Ever thought about videotaping an operation? That's what the students in BECA 580 are doing this semester as they produce a video for a local, non-profit organization and prepare for a summer production trip to El Salvador.

Operation Access, based in San Francisco, is a non-profit organization that provides surgeries to people in the Bay Area who lack health insurance. Acting as the "middle man," Operation Access secures the donation of time from surgeons, hospitals and other medical personnel. Simultaneously, the organization identifies patients who need surgery, but who do not have the insurance to pay for it. Thus, O.A. brings the patients and surgeons together to make the surgery happen.

Daniel Rabkin of Operation Access contacted BECA's Professor Betsy Blosser to inquire if BECA students could produce a video to encourage medical personnel to volunteer their time to Operation Access. Blosser and BECA graduate student Molly O'Neil agreed to produce the piece for the organization as a part of their BECA 580 - Media and Community Service class in the Spring of 2010.

BECA 580 is a two-course sequence in which students do a production for a local, non-profit organization in the spring semester while simultaneously preparing for an international production trip. In the summer months, students in the class travel to another country, where they do a second production - this time for a non-governmental organization (NGO) in the respective country. This year's students head for El Salvador in June, where they will work with the organization, Manos de Esperanza (hands of hope).

Meanwhile, their work for Operation Access continues. Students have actually shot footage of surgeries, as well as conducted interviews of doctors, patients, and others engaged with Operation Access. It has been good preparation for the El Salvador trip - 80% of the patient population of Operation Access is Latino, and many patients are monolingual Spanish speakers. More importantly, students have gained a profound respect for Operation Access, which fulfills a need in the Bay Area by making these surgeries possible. After receiving the surgery, patients are able to return to work to support themselves and their families. Doctors have the opportunity to volunteer their surgical skills without having to leave the country. Through this project, BECA students have honed their production skills, made a contribution to Operation Access, and looked through the viewfinder at the health care crisis as it plays out in the Bay Area.