A paradigm shift possible in 'constructing the Medical Humanities gaze'?

I'm pleased to be able to present the formal abstract, which is in the public domain, for an important philosophically-rooted study in CROH, an important medical journal for cancer studies.  I don't want to exaggerate, but the study (yes, it has forerunners) holds promise of a new paradigm functioning in and for medicine.  First off, it doesn't dismiss the patient's story (see item iii in the abstract below).  In conjunction with this item and the other of the authors' four, we encounter the authors' call for an approach they name Medical Humanities.  Since I articulated my own cri de coeur that led to establishing this blog, Christian Medical Observations & Ruminations, I began narrativizing my own medical experience from the midst of controversy and keen disappointment, in the form of a a Complaint against the two chief medicos administering a medicine to me of a very different sort from Medical Humanities.  Rather than cancer and genetic testing, my presently focal malady is one involving diabetes.  Of course, now I have a different medico, a nurse practioner of considerable experience and largeness of heart.

I want to thank the medical researchers who have written the article (to which I don't have access), Dr Marco Annoni, Dr Giuseppe Schiavone, Dr Luca Chiapperino, and Dr Giovanni Ronilo.  But even a tidbit, a brief abstract in a medical journal can prove extremely valuable.  Such is the present contribution of the four doctors who authored the research.

-- Albert Gedraitis


Critical Reviews in Oncology Hematology (Feb2,2k13)

Constructing the Medical Humanities gaze

• Marco Annoni
, 
• Giuseppe Schiavone
, 
• Luca Chiapperino
, 
• Giovanni Boniolo

SEMM (European School of Molecular Medicine) & 

IEO (European Institute of Oncology), Via Adamello 16, 20139 Milan, Italy 

& Faculty of Medicine, University of Milan, Milan, Italy

Critical Reviews in Oncology / Hematology
Volume 84, Supplement 2 , Pages S5-S10, 31 December 2012

Abstract 

In the last few decades genomics has completely reshaped the way in which patients and physicians experience and make sense of illness. In this paper we build upon a real case – namely that of breast cancer genetic testing – in order to point to the shortcomings of the paradigm currently driving healthcare delivery. In particular, we put forward a viable analytical model for the construction of a proper decisional process broadening the scope of medical gaze onto human experience of illness. This model revolves around four main conceptual axes: 

(i) communicating information; 

(ii) informing decisions; 

(iii) respecting narratives; 

(iv) empowering decision-making. 

These four kernels, we argue, map precisely onto the main pitfalls of the model presently dealing with genetic testing provision. Medical Humanities, we conclude, ought to play a pivotal role in constructing the environment for competent decision-making, autonomous self-determination and respectful narrativization of one's own life.

Keywords:  Medical Humanities , Decision-making , Autonomy , Narrative medicine , Information provision , Empowerment , Breast cancer , Genetic susceptibility

 

PII: S1040-8428(13)70003-9

doi:10.1016/S1040-8428(13)70003-9

© 2012 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.