On Being a Patient: Living with Life-Altering Illness and Injury

Abstract

People living with life-altering illnesses and injuries have a unique experience in the world, and there are many factors that influence that experience. Provider-patient relationships, in particular, have significant power to impact the way people living with life-altering illnesses and injuries experience themselves, their bodies, their lives, and their illnesses and injuries. This dissertation is based on a hermeneutic phenomenological analysis of five popular memoirs about living that experience, with a particular focus on the ways in which provider-patient relationships influence the authors’ experiences. That analysis is then used to inform an autoethnographic exploration of the realities of living with life-altering illness and injury. It includes an examination of the existential injuries inherent in this experience as well as the role of physicians as doctors versus physicians as doctor-healers, with in-depth investigation of the activities that are part of the doctor-healer role. Those activities include centering patient personhood, fostering hope, and collaborating, each of which is considered in light of personal experiences and existing philosophical and scientific literature. The dissertation concludes with consideration of implications for a variety of audiences, including physicians, patients, healthcare systems, and medical education programs.