It is difficult (or even impossible) to map the territory of human suffering by the sole means of clinical tools, diagnostic tests and biomedical concepts. Or to say it differently, it doesn’t seem easy, nor reasonable, to answer the questions « How to live a better life? », (or « How to have a good death? ») with the vocabulary of evidence-based medicine and statistical tests.
Health professionals have a major role to play in relieving suffering or helping their patients cope with it. But to do so, they have to forget temporarily their clinical knowledge. They have to turn into ethnographers [1] in order to better understand how illness affects the life of people, and what it may be like to feel what they feel.
By the way, it is not so much about understanding than imagining. Through imagination, we are able to explore the emotional landscape of our patients [2]. These persons are confronted with the transforming power of illness. We meet them while they are enduring a long, costly and exhausting transformation. Our compass, in such an exploration, is not Harrison's Principles. Let's say rather Pedro Paramo [3] and Guimaes Rosa’s Jaguar [4].
References:
[1] Kleinman, A., & Benson, P. (2006). Anthropology in the clinic: the problem of cultural competency and how to fix it. PLoS Medicine, 3(10), e294.
[2] Halpern, J. (2003). What is clinical empathy? Journal of General Internal Medicine, 18(8), 670–4.
[3] Rulfo, J. (1994). Pedro Paramo. Grove Press.
[4] Guimaraes Rosa, J. (2001). The Jaguar and other stories. Boulevard books
Competing interests:
No competing interests
07 November 2016
Sébastien MOINE
GP
Multi-Professional Group Practice "The Vines of the Abbey"
Rapid Response:
Paramo rather than Harrison.
It is difficult (or even impossible) to map the territory of human suffering by the sole means of clinical tools, diagnostic tests and biomedical concepts. Or to say it differently, it doesn’t seem easy, nor reasonable, to answer the questions « How to live a better life? », (or « How to have a good death? ») with the vocabulary of evidence-based medicine and statistical tests.
Health professionals have a major role to play in relieving suffering or helping their patients cope with it. But to do so, they have to forget temporarily their clinical knowledge. They have to turn into ethnographers [1] in order to better understand how illness affects the life of people, and what it may be like to feel what they feel.
By the way, it is not so much about understanding than imagining. Through imagination, we are able to explore the emotional landscape of our patients [2]. These persons are confronted with the transforming power of illness. We meet them while they are enduring a long, costly and exhausting transformation. Our compass, in such an exploration, is not Harrison's Principles. Let's say rather Pedro Paramo [3] and Guimaes Rosa’s Jaguar [4].
References:
[1] Kleinman, A., & Benson, P. (2006). Anthropology in the clinic: the problem of cultural competency and how to fix it. PLoS Medicine, 3(10), e294.
[2] Halpern, J. (2003). What is clinical empathy? Journal of General Internal Medicine, 18(8), 670–4.
[3] Rulfo, J. (1994). Pedro Paramo. Grove Press.
[4] Guimaraes Rosa, J. (2001). The Jaguar and other stories. Boulevard books
Competing interests: No competing interests