Nurse Jackie, Hunter “Patch” Adams, and the list goes on. Movies are filled with stories of great medical caretakers, but with all great caretakers come terrible ones. Below you’ll find cinema’s worst medical caretakers.
Dr. Evil from the “Austin Powers” Series
Who could consider “worst medical caretakers” without thinking of Dr. Evil? He clone side-kick, Mini-me, and bald cat, Mr. Bigglesworth stand loyally at his side as he plans world domination and wreaks havoc. All in all, probably not the doctor you want conducting your annual physical exam.
Dr. Blue Jones from “Sucker Punch”
Dr. Jones is the director of an insane asylum set in the 1960’s, a time when lobotomies were considered a legitimate treatment for psychological disorders. But Dr. Jones doesn’t just do lobotomies on people with mental issues; he’ll do them on anyone if the price is right. In Sucker Punch, “Baby Doll” is a young woman whose step father has institutionalized her to get her mother’s inheritance. After being paid by Baby Doll’s stepfather, Dr. Jones forges the asylum’s therapist’s signature ordering Baby Doll to receive a lobotomy.
Dr. Heiter from “The Human Centipede”
Dr. Heiter is world-renowned for his surgical expertise in separating Siamese twins; however, his interests lie in something much more sinister: he wants to surgically connect humans from mouth to rear so that they share a single digestive system. Of course, he can’t go about doing that in a hospital, so he drugs and kidnaps his surgical victims.
Dr. Lecter from “The Silence of the Lambs”
He might be a brilliant former psychiatrist, but Dr. Lecter probably isn’t a psychiatrist you want helping you work through your problems. After all, he has an uncontrollable hankering for some unusual food: human.
Nurse Annie Wilkes in “Misery”
Nurse Wilkes doesn’t seem dangerous. That is, until you cross her. Nurse Wilkes takes in an author after he breaks both of his legs in a car accident, promising to help him until they can reach a hospital. A serial killer who began her spree in her childhood, Wilkes has already killed a neighboring family, her father, a college roommate, a man to whom she had a fling, and 11 infants; as the author begins to suspect her mental illness, he realizes that his car accident was no accident. Nurse Wilkes has a violent bedside manner; she begins torturing the author and when he attempts to escape, breaks his ankles with a sludge hammer.
Nurse Ratched from “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”
Cruel, cold, and controlling, Nurse Ratched is not the nurse you want to stand up to. Between her humiliation tactics and punishments with Electroconvulsive therapy, if you do something she doesn’t like, you can be sure you’ll receive ample punishment.
Hal the Orderly from “Happy Gilmore”
An orderly in a nursing home, Hal is the last one any grandmother or grandfather wants as their orderly. As he says in Happy Gilmore after Gilmore’s grandmother asks for a glass of warm milk, “You can trouble me for a glass of shut the hell up. Now you will go to sleep, or I will put you to sleep. See the nametag? You’re in my world now, Grandma.”
While all of these caretakers are fictional, real world examples of some of these abuses exist; specifically, nursing home abuse to a much worst degree than the verbal abuse Happy Gilmore’s grandmother endured. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 91 percent of nursing homes are guilty of serious deficits in patient care. Unfortunately, these deficits include and lead to abuse and neglect of patients. If you or someone you know has fallen victim to abuse at the hands of a nursing home caretaker, you must act. Nursinghomeabuse.net was founded with the purpose of filling the void of information on nursing home abuse. To that end, this resource provides laypersons with legal updates and informational blogs to help prevent, inform, and heal those affected by the nursing home abuse epidemic.
Amber Paley is a guest post and article writer bringing to us Seven of Cinema’s Worst Medical Caretakers. Outraged by the prevalence of elder abuse in the U.S., Amber spends much of her professional life writing educational articles to help those affected by elder abuse.