Human and person when life is fragile: new relationships and inherent ambivalences in the care of dying patients

Journal article

tIn this paper, we focus on how medical staff care for people who are dyingand on the increasing use of diverse technologies to ease the experience ofdying. Because it is accepted patients cannot recover, the primary value topreserve life underpinning much of biomedical practice is contrasted by acommitment to make people’s last period of life as fulfilling and meaningfulas possible. Drawing on illustrative cases from an ethnography of palliativecare in central London, we discuss how these different priorities constructthe patient in different ways. We present two different repertoires of practice, the first of which cares for human life, while the second adopts anidea of personhood to support and maintain patients’ social ties with thewider world. The two concepts inscribe different boundaries of the patientand can help guide what might be the best thing for staff, patients, andothers to do. Our examples show that while these two repertoires canemerge in tension in end-of-life care, they are never fully opposites. Weargue for a reaffirmation of the concept of the person to accompany con-temporary posthuman and more-than-human debates in order to thinkabout “more-than” beyond a focus on the material.

Authors: Cohn, S; Driessen, A; Borgstrom, E

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Journal: Science, Technology, and Human Values
• Publication date: 2023-03-20
• Acceptance date: 2022-12-02
• DOI: 10.1177/01622439231155647
• EISSN: 1552-8251
• ISSN: 0162-2439
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR