Galvanizing Gaza documentary AMERICAN DOCTOR takes a cinematic Hippocratic Oath

Palestinian residents walk through Gaza in the aftermath of Israeli airstrikes in AMERICAN DOCTOR. 

Content warning: AMERICAN DOCTOR features intense sequences of warfare, violence and medical procedures, as well as uncensored imagery of deceased children. Viewer discretion is advised.

Out of everything I have seen this year, AMERICAN DOCTOR is the film I have had the hardest time finishing. That is not a mark of low quality. In fact, just the opposite. The documentary, directed by Emmy-winning filmmaker Poh Si Teng in her feature debut, is a challenging, unsparing look at what it was like for three doctors to serve at Nasser Medical Complex, a Gazan hospital, before and after a 2025 ceasefire in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The movie is 90 minutes of medicine, misery, and three men attempting to save lives in a terrible situation. At times, it felt impossible to keep watching. 20 minutes in, I had already been moved to tears on three separate occasions. Witnessing a child dying onscreen will do that to you.

However, AMERICAN DOCTOR is worth finishing. More than that, it feels vital to finish. This is a film that should be seen, shared, and talked about. As a document of the ongoing bloodshed occurring in Palestine, it feels like the movie is taking its own kind of Hippocratic Oath. While the physician swears to aid the sick to the best of their ability, AMERICAN DOCTOR attempts to treat a societal ill: the death of children, occurring by the hundreds without the intervention of the responsible governments. The salve, the film posits, is to spotlight the crisis as truthfully as it can and hope that the world will listen. That mission is evident from the opening minutes of the movie. 

Dr. Mark Perlmutter in AMERICAN DOCTOR.

The first scene of the film features Dr. Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish orthopedic surgeon from Rocky Mount, North Carolina, in conversation with Teng. Perlmutter, one of the three central subjects of the movie, is an acerbic, passionate critic of the atrocities he witnesses, and a champion of direct communication. The first time we see him, he tells Teng not to censor a photograph of dead Palestinian children. The fact of their death is atrocity enough, he argues. 

"Their bodies tell the story of this trauma. Of this genocide. You're not doing them a service by not showing them," he tells her. 

The documentarian's camera settles on a laptop, the image on full, unblinking display. Afterward, no image is altered to be more palatable. Nor is any proffered idea made to feel more comfortable. The movie moves through its subject matter with the unflinching quality of the doctors it follows. 

Not that the movie is indulgent in its depiction of bloodshed, violence, or hurt. Teng and her team are careful to present every sequence with care, veering away from exploitation, especially during the very real medical procedures and air raids that AMERICAN DOCTOR captures. The result is that the moments of viscera it does reveal feel purposefully chosen, like the necessary evils of demonstrating destruction.

The Nasser Medical Complex, a hospital in Khan Younis, Palestine, in AMERICAN DOCTOR

Those moments would not be nearly as impactful, however, without the context of the people around them. AMERICAN DOCTOR threads the needle between character study, political essay, and medical procedural.

Considering that this film about the Israel-Palestine conflict, a blazingly controversial global issue, is told from the perspective of three men serving in a Palestinian hospital, it would be reasonable to view it as a pro-Palestine text. However, the movie does its best to defend itself, if not as a neutral item, as an encompassing depiction of non-political truth.

For one thing, its three central subjects have vastly different backgrounds, personalities, and approaches to their advocacy for the end of hospital attacks in Gaza. In addition to Perlmutter, AMERICAN DOCTOR follows Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian-American emergency physician from Chicago, and Dr. Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon from California. 

Perlmutter, for example, is frequently emotional, angry, and exasperated by his interactions with reporters. If viewers feel differently, or even if they empathize with his views, the doctor can dole out tough pills to swallow. For instance, at one point, he directly engages against the notion that rejecting Zionism is condoning antisemitism. It isn't, he argues. 

"You can love Israel and still hate the rightwing, fascist government that runs it and pray for change," he spits.

Perlmutter is the most abjectly political of AMERICAN DOCTOR's three stars. The other two doctors, Sidhwa and Ahmad, do their best to be abjectly analytical, even in conversation with their colleague. Teng gives time and space for each doctor to express their individual beliefs, rather than pushing a single narrative. 

What is missing, however, is the voice of anyone who believes that the war tactics of Israel are just. The movie does not even entertain the thought. That would be against its Hippocratic Oath. This is a film about war crimes and the unjust death of children. This is a film about genocide, not political ideology. 

Dr. Thaer Ahmad, right, in AMERICAN DOCTOR

Ahmad, the father of two small children, explains it best. After sharing a live report about Gaza with a journalist on TV, the Palestinian doctor receives an accusatory email from a viewer, calling him antisemitic and insulting his ethics.

"This is the kind of really frustrating part of this," he replies. "I'm not a spokesperson for anybody, I'm not pro-anything. I'm a Palestinian who wants to see babies who look like my babies not be killed anymore. You know? I'm a human being, I'm a doctor and I want to be able to practice and treat anybody, without having any sort of restrictions in place or threat against my life. So, this is… I could care less about an email like that."

His response is the crux of AMERICAN DOCTOR. The film is a war cry against the Israel-Palestine war. Its message is clear, even when its narrative is muddled. 

While I think this is an incredible, mighty accomplishment of a documentary, it can be tough to follow its timeline. The film has a bifurcated structure, moving back and forth between the doctors' medical service in Gaza and their attempts to talk to Western media outlets and United States political leaders about the atrocities committed there. The structure is convoluted, often leaping through time and space between scenes without pausing to explain when each moment is transpiring. 

However, when the film offers a timestamp, it delivers a punch to the gut.

March 18th, 2025: ceasefire ends.

March 23rd, 2025: Nasser Medical Complex is hit by several missiles. On camera.

"It doesn't matter what they were trying to do. You don't fire on a hospital, no matter what," one of the doctors says.

AMERICAN DOCTOR is a cinematic call-to-action. It may not have the cure for the ails of Palestine and Israel, but it is doing its best to administer aid through information. As much as I was horrified by it, and as hard as it was to watch it, I was inspired by it, too. The movie ends with a statistic: More than 1,700 health care workers have been killed in Gaza since 2023. Even so, Ahmad, Sidhwa, Perlmutter, and their colleagues continue to serve. Understanding what they are sacrificing is the least we can do to help treat a growing global hurt. That's a powerful result of watching a documentary.

Release info: Now playing in select theaters

Final score: 4.5/5

Pruett Norris is a journalist and film critic based in Asheville, NC. He is a member of the North Carolina Film Critics Association and has written for 828newsNOW, Cultural Voice of North Carolina, 1 of My Stories and Pictures & Projections. He loves Richard Linklater, vampire movies and the Oscars.