Enacting Woundedness and Compassionate Care for Recurrent Metastatic Breast Cancer

This analysis integrates Arthur Frank’s timeless revelations about woundedness within the communication context of an oncology interview. A Patient whose life is threatened by recurrent metastatic breast cancer claims personal knowledge and visibly demonstrates impacts from illness experiences. Conv...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Qualitative health research 2022-01, Vol.32 (2), p.210-224
Main Author: Beach, Wayne A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Breast cancer
Breast Neoplasms - therapy
Communication
Compassionate care
Crying
Embarrassment
Empathy
Female
Floods
Humans
Interviews
Laughter
Medical education
Medical Oncology
Metastasis
Neoplasm Recurrence, Local
Oncologists
Oncology
Qualitative research
Recurrent
Sympathy
Talking
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Summary:This analysis integrates Arthur Frank’s timeless revelations about woundedness within the communication context of an oncology interview. A Patient whose life is threatened by recurrent metastatic breast cancer claims personal knowledge and visibly demonstrates impacts from illness experiences. Conversation Analysis (CA) was conducted on a video recorded and transcribed case study involving a Patient, her husband, and co-present oncologists. By focusing on narratives as talk-in-interaction, grounded exemplars are provided of primary interactional achievements: How woundedness gets displayed and responded to with empathy and compassionate witnessing; Patient’s flooding out with emotion and potential embarrassment; attempting to regain control and resume talking about her condition; and the serial organization of crying and laughter when managing noticeably delicate moments. In this interview, woundedness is not discounted or dismissed but recognized as legitimate suffering meriting shared commiseration. Understanding how to enact humane and communicatively competent skills during emotionally uncertain moments can enhance medical education.
ISSN:1049-7323
1552-7557
DOI:10.1177/10497323211050907