Medical Humanities, Sociology and the Suffering Self: Surviving Health

333 Pages·2020·6.271 MB·English

by  Wendy Lowe

Medical Humanities, Sociology
and the Suffering Self
Following criticisms of the traditionally polarised view of understanding
suffering through either medicine or social justice, Lowe makes a
compelling argument for how the medical humanities can help to go
beyond the traditional biographical and epistemic breaks to see into the
nature and properties of suffering and what is at stake.
Lowe demonstrates through analysis of major healthcare workforce
issues and incidence of burnout how key policies and practices
influence healthcare education and experiences of both patients and
health professionals. By including first person narratives from health
professionals as a tool and resource, she illustrates how dominant ideas
about the self enter practice as a refusal of suffering. Demonstrating the
relationship between personal experience, theory and research, Lowe
argues for a pedagogy of suffering that shows how the moral anguish
implicit in suffering is an ethical response of the emergent self.
This is an important read for all those interested in medical humanities,
health professional education, person-centred care and the sociology of
health and illness.
Wendy Lowe is a Senior Lecturer in Medical Sociology and Medical
Education at Queen Mary University of London, UK.
Routledge Advances in the Medical Humanities
Reconsidering Dementia Narratives
Empathy, Identity and Care
Rebecca A. Bitenc
Moments of Rupture: The Importance of Affect in Surgical Training and
Medical Education
Perspectives from Professional Learning and Philosophy
Arunthathi Mahendran
Storytelling Encounters as Medical Education
Crafting Relational Identity
Sally Warmington
Educating Doctors’ Senses Through the Medical Humanities
“How Do I Look?”
Alan Bleakley
Medical Humanities, Sociology and the Suffering Self
Surviving Health
Wendy Lowe
A Whole Person Approach to Wellbeing
Building Sense of Safety
Johanna Lynch
Rethinking Pain in Person-Centred Health Care
Around Recovery
Stephen Buetow
For more information about this series visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-
Advances-in-the-Medical-Humanities/book-series/RAMH
Medical Humanities,
Sociology
and the Suffering Self
Surviving Health
Wendy Lowe
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2021 Wendy Lowe
The right of Wendy Lowe to be identified as author of this work has
been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lowe, Wendy (Lecturer in medical sociology), author.
Title: Medical humanities, sociology and the suffering self: surviving
health/Wendy Lowe.
Description: Abingdon, Oxon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2021. |
Series: Routledge advances in medical humanities | Includes
bibliographical references and index. | Contents: Stitching suffering
together -- Patterns of suffering -- Suffering as foundational to health
professional education -- Sorting the wood from the trees -- The
suffering self and burning woman -- Pilgrimages - how can medical
humanities think differently about suffering? -- Diving Down Deep. |
Summary: “Following criticisms of the traditionally polarised view of
understanding suffering through either medicine or social justice,
Lowe argues that medical humanities can help to go beyond the
traditional biographical and epistemic breaks to see into the nature
and properties of suffering and what is at stake”-- Provided by
publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020032574 (print) | LCCN 2020032575 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367321413 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367672997
(paperback) | ISBN 9780429316937 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Medicine and the humanities. | Suffering.
Classification: LCC R702.L69 2021 (print) | LCC R702 (ebook) |
DDC 610--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/
2020032574 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/
2020032575
ISBN: 978-0-367-32141-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-31693-7 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
For Ellen and Lauren

Contents
List of figures viii
List of tables ix
List of boxes x
Preface xi
1 Stitching suffering together 1
2 Patterns of suffering 51
3 Suffering as foundational to health professional
education 84
4 Sorting the wood from the trees: Challenges
integrating medical humanities and sociology into
a medical curriculum 109
5 The suffering self and burning woman 145
6 Pilgrimages – how can medical humanities think
differently about suffering? 199
7 Diving down deep 270
Appendix: Curriculum for a pedagogy of suffering 302
Index 309
Figures
0.1 Lacunae of suffering xv
1.1 Mental suffering based on observations from Ricoeur
(Devisch et al., 2017) 3
1.2 Consilience of suffering (Source: Adapted from
Wilson, 1998) 16
1.3 A dispositionalist approach to methodological pluralism
for causal evidencing in medicine and public health
(Rocco & Anjum, 2020) and relating suffering to this approach 25
1.4 Lacunae representation of theoretical framework
on suffering 33
1.5 Mismatch in experiences of patients and health
professionals related to musculoskeletal suffering
(Lowe et al., 2014). 40
2.1 Cloisters of redemption and portals through suffering 53
2.2 A systems model of clinician burnout and professional
well-being (NAM, 2020) 54
3.1 Suffering as foundational in health professional
education 91
3.2 Framework of suffering 105
4.1 Lost in the woods 111
5.1 Still in the woods 152
5.2 Suffering framework with conceptual, categorical
and experiential imperatives 160
6.1 Clearing in the woods 213
6.2 The deployment of the moral emotions at the centre 242
7.1 Diving deep and thinking outside a box 284
7.2 Detail of intersection of self-other and languishing-
acting axes – lacunae 285
7.3 Processes of self at the zone of disorientation 288
7.4 Relationship between operational necessity of
certainty and uncertainty 293
A.1 Meta-curriculum 302
Tables
1.1 Basic modes and properties of relationships (Fiske,
1993; Haslam, 2012) in relation to suffering – final
column (various authors) 29
3.1 Range of experiences of suffering 90
3.2 Possible responses to suffering 94
3.3 Multimodal representations when learning about
suffering 98
5.1 Levels, concepts and categories of the self 149