Summary: The waiting list of organ recipients-80,000 people in America alone-is testimony to the spectacular success of transplant surgery. This program presents a history of this emerging field of medicine, highlighting breakthroughs in surgical procedures and related drugs, as well as looking at how cutting-edge technologies will change its future. Cameras go inside the operating room to show several...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2006
View online at AVOD
Summary: As a history of infection and contagion, this program tells a story of clever science and dumb luck, horror and hope. Filmed at locations worldwide, the video traces the battles fought against humanity's oldest foes: diseases such as yellow fever, malaria, syphilis, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, polio, and perhaps the deadliest pandemic of all, AIDS. Health workers and epidemiologists on the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: In the past, there was no such thing as mental illness, only madness. Its treatment was often indistinguishable from torture or murder. This program follows the long, often grim road towards understanding and treating mental illness. Through testimonials, original manuscripts, photos, and extensive footage from medical archives, leading doctors and medical historians trace the history of...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Due to ignorance, politics, and misused technologies, childbirth until very recently was often deadly to mother and child. This program presents a medical history of childbirth from ancient times to the present, contrasting methods and beliefs of the past with today's obstetrics. Along with commentary from obstetricians, medical historians, and evolutionary biologists, the program highlights...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Today, most surgical procedures are safe, even routine. It wasn't always that way. By looking at the obstacles of pain, infection, and shock, this program chronicles the milestones and pioneers of modern surgery, tracing the development of anesthesia, antiseptics, antibiotics, and transfusions. To illustrate just how far the field has come, the intricacies of heart bypass surgery are presented...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: On July 16, 1054, a dramatic event occurred during the worship service in the Church of Hagia Sophia: a papal delegation delivered a document excommunicating the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the Patriarch promptly excommunicated the Pope in return. Known as The Great Schism, the act divided Eastern from Western Catholic Christianity. Going on location to the most venerated sites in the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: For more than a millennium Western civilization looked to the Church for answers to questions about life’s meaning. But for many, acceptance of ecclesiastical doctrine wasn’t enough. This program traces the roots of modern religious skepticism back over 400 years to examine both the unraveling and the endurance of Christian belief. It explores challenges to established theologies in the ideas...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: The Reformation was a period of rebellion, upheaval, and war - all sparked by one man whose revolt against church authority led to the creation of Protestantism and ultimately, to a reinvigoration of the Catholic faith. This program travels to churches in Europe, Britain, and Mexico to explore the key figures, philosophies, and movements of the Protestant Reformation. It looks at the issues...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program brings viewers to exceptional sacred sites throughout the Near East and Asia to trace the first expansion of Christianity from Jerusalem - which was not to Rome with Paul, but to Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Armenia, and Ethiopia. After the Siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD followers of Jesus fled to Asia Minor, establishing a thriving ecclesiastical community at least 100 years before...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Rome was once the center of Christian persecution, but the martyrdom there of Paul and Peter began the unfolding of a historical epic that ended with the seat of empire becoming the spiritual capital of the Western Latin church. This program charts the development of Roman Catholicism, traveling to the ancient Port of Ostia, churches in Ravenna, and a remote Celtic monastery to show how...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Now identified mainly with Fundamentalism, the Evangelical movement that began in 18th-century Britain was an exuberant expression of Protestantism that quickly spread across the globe. What made it so compelling that slaves and slave-owners, the poor and the powerful alike, embraced it in America, Africa, and Asia? This program studies the cultural, theological, and political framework of the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.. Dickens' tragic tale of love, friendship, and sacrifice begins against the backdrop of the French Revolution. Using affecting dramatizations of key passages, Dickens experts Professor Margaret Reynolds and Professor John Rignall analyze the many nuances and themes of this work. Topics discussed include dualism in characterization and plot;...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: Although photography was invented in the first half of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century marked extraordinary changes. The Developing Image travels back to the very first time in history when inexpensive hand-held cameras gave ordinary people the opportunity to create their own visual images. Through archival footage and interviews with historians and notable photographers,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1999
View online at AVOD
Summary: Spotlighting techniques provided by parents, teachers, and childcare professionals, this program features helpful strategies for early childhood education. Topics include the importance of art, science projects in the home, integrating math activities, and learning through building with blocks. Hosted by former schoolteacher and veteran mom Debi Gutierrez.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Why do boys underachieve? How does celebrity culture influence the self-esteem of young girls? In an atmosphere dominated by sex and consumerism, are children growing up too quickly? This program addresses those issues, reporting on a group of 25 eight-year-olds as they adjust to gender roles and expectations. Nathan's parents have gone all out to make sure he grows up without stereotypes-but...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Using only the words of some of the great photographers, this program seeks to trace "the life-line of the species" (in the words of John Szarkowski of the Museum of Modern Art, New York) Selecting their own favorite photos from contemporary works back to 1839, the producers of this program trace the lineage of photography as art and present a glorious parade of great photographs drawn from the...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2007
View online at AVOD
Summary: The wonderful invention of Daguerre and Fox Talbot fascinated the Victorians as a new art form and a new way of looking at the world. This program follows the technical and esthetic strides made by the early, often amateur, practitioners. Material is drawn from the British Royal Archives at Windsor Castle; The Royal Institution of South Wales, Swansea; from the early photographic societies; The...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2005
View online at AVOD
Summary: This program looks at the results achieved when photographers were commissioned to reflect the world or certain aspects of it. It focuses on the Farm Security Administration (whose archives are held by the Library of Congress, Washington) which set out to document America in the 1930s. The program also visits the Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal, where photography forms an integral...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: What are the consequences of bullying, high-stakes testing, homework overload, and family turmoil? Do these experiences prepare kids for an uncertain life ahead or are they too much, too young? This program explores what happens under the stressful conditions that children often face at home and school. Tracking a group of 25 eight-year-olds, the program follows young subjects through academic,...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2009
View online at AVOD
Summary: Focusing on techniques suggested by parents, teachers, and childcare professionals, this program features strategies for dealing with emotional and behavioral challenges in young children. The primary topic is encouraging friendships, while several activities designed to channel aggression and address frustrations are also included. Hosted by former schoolteacher and veteran mom Debi Gutierrez.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Using ideas from parents, teachers, and childcare providers, this program presents down-to-earth methods for effective early childhood education. Topics include creating a print-rich environment, making story time a regular practice, encouraging writing skills, implementing literacy activities, and fostering language development. Hosted by former schoolteacher and veteran mom Debi Gutierrez.
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: Using approaches from parents, teachers, and childcare providers, this program presents reliable methods for addressing childhood emotions and behavior problems. Topics include conflict resolution, self-control, tantrums, positive discipline, separation anxiety, sharing, self-esteem, emotional concepts, temperament, and overcoming isolation. Several activities are illustrated. Hosted by former...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: When Victoria ascended the throne, there were one-and-a-half million Londoners; at her death, there were four-and-a-half million, a population explosion spurred by the Irish potato famine and new laws which allowed Jews escaping from Russian pogroms to immigrate. London was the largest city in the world-new bridges opened up the city; railroads and docks brought people and goods. The 1851...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 2008
View online at AVOD
Summary: The power of the photographic image remains undiminished in the latter part of the 20th century, even though it faces new challenges from television, technology, motion pictures, and elsewhere. Photography Transformed examines surveillance photography and the Cuban Missile crisis, searing images from the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights violence—while highlighting the transformation to the new...
Format: software, multimedia
Publisher / Publication Date: Films Media Group 1999