The cultural currency of Nicholas Cage: Does it matter for teaching medicine?

Medical educators are often encouraged to develop innovative teaching practices. This can include using media such as movies and film clips to illustrate good or bad science and/or medical practice. As material gets older, educators are encouraged to find newer or more culturally aligned content, in order to stay relevant. This playful contribution to Medical Education Unleashed questions the necessity of updating media used in teaching to relate to students. We used a film clip from Michael Bay's 1996 movie, 'The Rock', and instructed students to fact check what Nicholas Cage tells us about Vx nerve agent-they could associate this with synapses such as the neuromuscular junction. On surveying the students, we found the majority of them perceived that the clip helped them with understanding and remembering information, as well as focusing during the workshop. This was despite none of them having been born at the time the film was released, and some being unfamiliar with the film, or its stars: Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage. Using this small, statistically nonviable study, we can conclude that film media can still be used for educational benefit, regardless of how well it aligns with the age and culture of students.