Introduction: Cinemeducation, the pedagogical use of films, has been used in a variety of clinical disciplines. To date, no studies have looked at the use of film depictions of cancer pain and its management in clinical education. We investigated how patients with cancer pain and their management are depicted in Hollywood films to determine whether there is content that would be amenable to use for cancer pain assessment and management education. Methods: A qualitative content analysis was performed. Films that contained characters with or references to cancer pain were searched for using the International Movie Database, the Literature Arts Medicine Database, the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Database, and Medicine on Screen. After review, 4 films were identified for review and analysis. Results: Themes that emerged from the analysis concerned the films’ depictions of characters with pain, their healthcare providers, the therapies used for pain management, and the setting in which pain management was provided. Conclusions: This study demonstrates that patients with cancer pain are depicted in a compassionate manner. Pain management focused on the use of opioids. The settings in which patients received pain management was depicted as not being amenable to providing holistic care. This variety of topics related to pain management covered in the films make them amenable to use in cinemeducation. This study therefore forms the basis for future work developing film-based cancer education modules.

The watching of films is popular and accessible to broad segments of the population. The depiction of medical conditions in films has the potential to affect the public’s perception of them and contribute to stereotypes and stigma. We investigated how patients with chronic pain and their management are depicted in feature films. Films that contained characters with or references to chronic pain were searched for using databases such as the International Movie Database. Themes that emerged from the content analysis revolved around the films’ depictions of characters with pain, their health care providers, and therapies for pain management. Patients with chronic pain were depicted in various ways, including in manners that could elicit empathy from audiences or that might contribute to the development of negative stereotypes about them. The attitudes of health care professionals toward patients with chronic pain ranged from compassionate to dispassionate. Pain management was typically depicted as lacking in breadth or using multidisciplinary approaches with a focus on pharmacological management. The variety of topics related to chronic pain depicted in feature films lends to their use in medical education strategies to better inform health care professions trainees about chronic pain management.