Chris and Ann Ruge visited the University of Iowa on Thursday to discuss health care and their roles in “The Providers.”

The discussion came after a screening of the film, which is a 2018 documentary about three health care providers working with marginalized patients in rural northern New Mexico, at the Iowa Theater of the Iowa Memorial Union

Chris Ruge, a registered nurse and family nurse practitioner who graduated from the UI in 1979, was one of the three health care providers featured in the film alongside his wife, Ann, a certified midwife.

Chris and Ann worked at El Centro Family Health in Las Vegas, New Mexico for 14 years where they provided care to marginalized patients suffering from various health issues. A majority of these patients were victims to underlying social issues and who may otherwise be left out of the health care system.

Chris said in an interview with The Daily Iowan that the film’s producers, Laura Green and Anna Moot-Levin, found him through a mutual connection. They had been looking around northern New Mexico to film a documentary on the realities and obstacles of rural health care, so the Ruges offered their ranch as a home while they searched for subjects.

Chris said he and Ann shared a lot of the same feelings about health care with the producers, who then decided they wanted to focus on their work as well.

Ann said the producers lived with them on and off for three years, filming all aspects of their lives as well as their colleagues and patients.

“I think Chris and I practice in a certain way that they wanted to get at in terms of really interactive, caring types of medicine in a very rural setting,” Ann said. “It was quite an amazing experience.”

Chris said the documentary helps show what it looks like for a provider to be present with patients with a lot of needs.

“The core mission I have in health care, and Ann shares this, is relationship-building,” Chris said. “We both work really hard to get to know our patients and to [show] them the reality that we are interested in them, we care about them, we want to help them, and we’re there for them.”

He said there is a need for such care amid a broken health care system where many providers are profit-focused or entirely unwilling to work in primary care settings.

“I think we both look at health care as more of a mission, a calling, [and] a way of living versus a nine-to-five job to generate income,” Chris said. “We’re blessed and honored to be welcomed into people’s lives and to be a witness to their struggles.”

Chris said it is important to understand there is a more holistic and meaningful way of providing health care, and the documentary can help show that.

“We’re happy that people are using it as a teaching tool because it is something that I want people coming into health care and all different areas to be thinking about which is, at a core level, how to approach health care and how to think about health care,” he said. 

Chris and Ann agreed the documentary also touches on underlying issues including addiction, sexual abuse, classism, and financial and relationship stressors that create these needs for health care.

“It’s all providers that are mentioned [and their] whole dedication to the struggling part of society that it’s so common these people are missed,” Ann said. “It’s inspiring that way.”

Gayle Walter, a UI department of health and human physiology associate professor, shows “The Providers” to her students in her health services class. She organized the Ruges’ visit after reaching out to Chris on LinkedIn.

“It was kind of funny because the students were like, ‘Wouldn’t that be cool if he came here?’ I’m like, ‘Let me see,’” Walter said. “I thought, ‘Well, I’ll just reach out to him and see if he’ll be interested in coming on campus,’ and he said yes. That’s kind of how it all came to be.”

Walter said she thinks of the film not just as health care but also in terms of education, social justice, food insecurity, child care, and even journalism. She said issues in health care access need to be addressed from a holistic perspective.

“When you’re looking at it from the broader perspective, I think we just need to think about vulnerable patients and working together for health care equity so that they should have the same resources and opportunities that everybody else does,” Walter said.

She said students at the UI need to see this film because they need to understand these issues when they encounter them.

“I think every student at the University of Iowa should see it just to raise awareness to become knowledgeable about things they have not experienced before,” Walter said.

Walter said she loves the film because it covers real people telling their stories.

“It’s very emotional,” she said. “I’ve seen it about eight times, and I still cry. I’m very moved by what they say, so I think you’re really going to like it.”