"Nobody Understands": On a Cardinal Phenomenon of Palliative Care

Author(s)
Okon, Tomasz R.
Keywords
Communication
Death
Empathy
Medicine
Palliative Care
Patients
Research
Review
Suffering
Philosophical Ethics

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URI
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12424/136899
Online Access
http://worldcatlibraries.org/registry/gateway?version=1.0&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&atitle="Nobody+understands":+on+a+cardinal+phenomenon+of+palliative+care&title=Journal+of+Medicine+and+Philosophy+&volume=31&issue=1&date=2006-02&au=Okon,+Tomasz+R.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03605310500499161
http://hdl.handle.net/10822/974842
Abstract
In the clinical practice of palliative medicine, recommended communication models fail to approximate the truth of suffering associated with an impending death. I provide evidence from patients' stories and empiric research alike to support this observation. Rather than attributing this deficiency to inadequate training or communication skills, I examine the epistemological premises of the biomedical language governing the patient-physician communication. I demonstrate that the contemporary biomedicine faces a fundamental aporetic occlusion in attempting to examine death. This review asserts that the occlusion defines, rather than simply complicating, palliative care. Given the defining place of aporia in the care for the dying, I suggest that this finding shape the clinicians' responses to the needs of patients in clinical care and in designing palliative research. Lastly, I briefly signal that a genuinely apophatic voice construing the occlusion as a mystery rather than an aporia may be superior to the present communication and empathy models.
Date
2016-01-08
Identifier
oai:repository.library.georgetown.edu:10822/974842
doi:10.1080/03605310500499161
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 2006 February; 31(1): 13- 46
http://worldcatlibraries.org/registry/gateway?version=1.0&url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&atitle="Nobody+understands":+on+a+cardinal+phenomenon+of+palliative+care&title=Journal+of+Medicine+and+Philosophy+&volume=31&issue=1&date=2006-02&au=Okon,+Tomasz+R.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03605310500499161
http://hdl.handle.net/10822/974842
DOI
10.1080/03605310500499161
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