Coma

The Coolidge Corner Theatre kicks off a new season of Science on Screen with a screening of the classic medical thriller Coma (1978), paired with a talk by special guest Robin Cook, MD, who wrote the best-selling novel on which the film is based.

Something is not quite right at Boston Memorial Hospital. When her best friend falls into a coma after a routine operation, surgical resident Susan Wheeler (Geneviève Bujold) does some digging, and discovers that many other patients, all young and relatively healthy, have met the same fate. She digs deeper, but her obsession with finding answers only antagonizes her superiors and alienates her boyfriend, Dr. Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas), who dismisses her suspicions of foul play. The tension builds as Dr. Wheeler's investigation leads her to a mysterious facility where she witnesses comatose bodies suspended on wires in a computer-controlled environment — and uncovers a chilling link to the black-market trade in human organs.

Before the film, Dr. Cook will talk about some of the medical and ethical issues portrayed in Coma and how those issues still resonate today. Since the publication of Coma in 1977, Dr. Cook has combined medical fact with fiction to produce 27 New York Times bestsellers that have been translated into 40 languages. His latest novel, Intervention, was released in August 2009. Dr. Cook is a graduate of Columbia University Medical School and finished his postgraduate medical training at Harvard. He is currently on leave from the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.

Tickets: Museum of Science members and students: $7.75; general admission: $9.75; Coolidge Corner Theatre members: free. Tickets are available in advance at coolidge.org or at the theater box office, 290 Harvard Street, Brookline.

With Science on Screen, the Coolidge Corner Theatre shows a feature film or documentary with a basis in science, combined with exciting remarks by noted scientists and others in related fields. The Science on Screen series is co-presented by the Museum of Science, Boston and New Scientist magazine.

Coma

Coma

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Coma

Schedules

Remaining seats appear in parenthesis after event time.

September 21, 2009: 7:00 pm

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Coma

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