'Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders' Makes Debut

Dec. 14, 2009— -- "Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders" is a new documentary that takes a raw and unflinching look at the work of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning organization Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF).

For the first time in their 38-year history, the humanitarian organization gave filmmakers access to their doctors working in two of the most dangerous conflict zones in the world -- war-torn Congo and post-war Liberia. Many of the patients had never even seen a doctor before making their way to the MSF-sponsored hospitals.

Cameras are there as volunteers, often armed with only the local primitive medical tools at their disposal, and are forced to make split-second, life or death decisions for their patients. These doctors do it all even as their own lives are threatened by the chaos surrounding them.

Two of the doctors profiled in the film are new recruits to MSF. Each must find a way to survive the seemingly overwhelming difficulties neither could not have even imagined when signing up.

We also meet two veterans of the organization -- both exhausted and a bit disillusioned after several field assignments. By the end of the film, all four doctors will be pushed to the breaking point as they balance the limitations of what they can accomplish in the face of massive medical needs with the limits of their own idealism.

MSF is a humanitarian organization committed to providing emergency medical relief to countries that have been destabilized by violence. The men and women of MSF are often some of the first to arrive on the scene of an emergency. They operate in 70 countries, with 2,000 international staff members and 24,000 locally hired personnel.

In order to protect their independence and flexibility, MSF gets almost all of its funding from private organizations and the general public. Thousands of medical professionals volunteer each year. Unfortunately, the often overwhelming levels of emotional and physiological stress makes it necessary for MSF to accept only a select few.

For more information on "Living in Emergency: Stories of Doctors Without Borders" or MSF, click here.