About Code Black Movie
In his vivid and thought-provoking filmmaking debut, physician Ryan McGarry gives us unprecedented access to America’s busiest Emergency Department. Amidst real life-and-death situations, McGarry follows a dedicated team of charismatic, young doctors-in-training as they wrestle openly with both their ideals and with the realities of saving lives in a complex and overburdened system.
Their training ground and source of inspiration is “C-Booth,” Los Angeles County Hospital’s legendary trauma bay, the birthplace of Emergency Medicine, where “more people have died and more people have been saved than in any other square footage in the United States.” CODE BLACK offers a tense, doctor’s-eye view, right into the heart of the healthcare debate – bringing us face to face with America’s only 24/7 safety net.
The Filmmaker, Producer, Executive Producers
The Filmmaker Ryan McGarry is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine and a physician at The Weill Medical College of Cornell University/New York Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City and the director of the feature-length documentary CODE BLACK. The film is a first-person reflection of McGarry’s own training at the Los Angeles County General Hospital, the birthplace of emergency medicine.
McGarry spent five years in production on CODE BLACK while simultaneously working the 24/7 schedule of a young doctor in training—an especially sleepless approach to first-time filmmaking. He studied English at The Pennsylvania State University and received his medical degree at The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, a decision inspired in part by his experience as a stage IV cancer patient while in college. He is currently developing fiction, scripted projects for both film and television.
The Producer Linda Goldstein Knowlton directed and produced the 2012 documentary, SOMEWHERE BETWEEN, which chronicles the coming-of-age stories of four teenaged girls in the US, all of who were adopted from China as babies. It premiered in Toronto at the 2011 Hot Docs Film Festival, where it garnered the Sundance Channel Audience Award and went on to screen at the LA Film Festival, and many other festivals including Aspen, Vancouver, Boulder, Portland, and Milwaukee where it won the Best Documentary Award. The film screened at numerous festivals, and was released theatrically in over 80 cities across the US and was also selected for the 2012 Sundance Film Forward: Advancing Cultural Dialogue program, screening in India, Morocco, China, and Colombia.
Other producers include:
Mark Jonathan Harris, an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker and Distinguished Professor in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, where he heads documentary production;
Marti Noxon, who has written and Executive Produced for many critically-acclaimed shows including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Brothers & Sisters, Point Pleasant, and Still Life, and has also acted as consulting producer for Mad Men, Prison Break, Angel, and Glee;
Diku Mandavia, an emergency physician and a residency graduate of the LA County + USC Emergency Medicine program and Chief Medical Officer of FUJIFILM Sonosite Inc.
The Cast
Danny Cheng, MD is currently an Emergency Department physician at Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, HI. He is also a Clinical Professor at the University of Hawaii John A. Burns School of Medicine, where he received his medical degree. Dr. Cheng is an alumnus of the University of California Irvine (BS Biological Sciences) and received his Masters in Public Health from UCLA. He is married to the love of his life, Jackie.
Andrew Eads, MD is currently a third year Emergency Medicine Resident Physician at LA County and USC Hospital. He is a graduate of UC Berkeley (BS Chemistry) and received his Masters in Public Health from UCLA. He attended the University of California Irvine School of Medicine. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife Melissa, with whom he is expecting his first child later this year.
Jamie Eng, MD is currently the EMA Administrative Emergency Medicine Fellow in Los Angeles. She attended Chicago Medical School prior to completing her residency training at LA County + USC Medical Center. She recently earned a Masters in Medical Management from the USC Marshall School of Business.
Luis Enriquez, RN is a twenty-seven-year veteran Emergency Trauma Nurse at LA County USC Trauma Center. In addition to Clinical practice he serves as an Adjunct Clinical Instructor and lecturer. He is a graduate of LA County School of Nursing and California State Polytechnic University (BS Chemistry). Luis also is part of the Volunteer faculty with Good Samaritan Medical Ministry and has taught Emergency Nursing in Vietnam for the past three years. He has two grown children, Laura and Michael, with his wife Evelyn.
Arash Kohanteb, MD is currently a fourth-year Senior Emergency Medicine Resident Physician at LA County/USC Hospital. He attended UCLA earning a Bachelors in Science. He received his medical degree from the Chicago Medical School after taking time to travel. Arash currently lives in Santa Monica, California.
Billy Mallon, MD has been a member of the Emergency Medicine faculty at LAC+USC Medical Center for over 2 decades, including 10 years as the Emergency Medicine Residency Director. As an educator he has won numerous teaching awards locally and nationally for his teaching style which is direct and unfiltered. He is a past president of the California Chapter of ACEP, a Fulbright Senior Scholar (to Iceland), an AOA Faculty Inductee, and has lectured in over 20 countries on a wide variety of EM topics. Dr. Mallon has been intimately involved with the export of EM as a specialty to other countries to improve patient care. He helped to found the specialty of EM in Chile during a sabbatical year spent in South America, and he also obtained a Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the Gorgas’ School of Tropical Medicine in Lima, Peru. LAC+USC Medical Center has been his clinical home since 1987 when he began his internship there, followed by his EM residency, and ultimately joining the faculty in 1991.
Edward Newton, MD grew up in Montreal, Canada. He has undergraduate degrees in History (Loyola College), Microbiology (UBC) and Medicine (McGill University). He trained in Emergency Medicine at the LAC + USC Medical Center and completed a Fellowship in Medical Toxicology from 1982-1985. He then practiced at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and returned as the Emergency Medicine Residency Training Director at LAC + USC Medical Center from 1988 to 1995. He became Vice Chair of the Department of Emergency Medicine in 1995 and Chair of the Department from 2002-2012. He currently is working in the Emergency Department at LAC + USC.
Born and raised in Reno, NV,
Dave Pomeranz, MD is currently a third-year Emergency Medicine Resident Physician at LA County and USC. He attended Cornell University and studied Civil and Environmental Engineering and subsequently lived in New York City, Colorado, New Zealand, and back to Reno. He eventually attended the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, where he still currently resides.
Film Festivals and Awards
The film was the Documentary winner at Los Angeles Film Festival and the Hamptons International Film Festival, as well as the Audience Award Winner at both Denver Starz Film Festival and Aspen FilmFest.
Watch the Code Black Movie Trailer
