Journal
MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Volume 41, Issue 2, Pages 183-196Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2021.1928662
Keywords
Decision-making; hope; medical culture; oncology; palliative care; pediatrics
Funding
- METISS Research Team
- SHERPA Research Institute (Montreal, Canada)
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In the hospital setting, decision-making processes can be complex, with factors such as patient, caregivers, and scientific knowledge all playing a role. Even in the face of potential death, action may still be sustained through the intricate relationship between science, caregiver, and care receiver.
In the hospital milieu, daily questions relate to highly invested areas such as quality of life and death issues, choices to continue or stop active treatment, and the legitimacy of those who take part in such decisions. Stemming from an ethnographic study carried out in a hematology-oncology transplant unit in a Montreal pediatric hospital, we discuss the decision-making process (or lack thereof) when a patient faces poor prognosis and the change of trajectory from a curative/disease directed to a palliative perspective. The intricate relationship between science, caregiver, and care receiver sustains action even when (near) death is the probable outcome.
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