This article discusses the patient-doctor relationship in terms of Rita Charon’s concept of narrative medicine. The discussion is based on an interpretation of Intoxicated by My Illness and Other Writings on Life and Death, a collection of essays written by American writer and literary critic Anatole Broyard after he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. Writing about the ordeals of life and death, the author devoted a lot of attention to his meetings with doctors. Particularly in the essay The Patient Examines the Doctor, he points to a certain power struggle that takes place between the person who is ill and their physician. While physicians are generally believed to be in a privileged position, Broyard argues that they are also subjected to a similar, often equally painful, diagnosis process. His reflections on an ideal doctor (embodied by Oliver Sacks) turn out not to be completely utopian. Confronted with Rita Charon’s theses on narrative medicine, they seem to gain scientific confirmation.
Homo medicus as opposed to Homo patiens, the perspective of a physician will always be different from that of a patient. Modern medicine suffers from a major condition – ignoring the patient as a person. It may be remedied by narrative medicine which pays attention to humanistic aspects of a disease and to patient narratives of illness as a possibility to obtain invaluable information that is typically overlooked in a traditional medical history. Empathy and attentive listening play an important role here. Pathography, or patient accounts of their illnesses, may serve as a perfect complement to the practice and programmes of narrative medicine.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.