Thinking Piece about "Letter to a Young Doctor

Thinking Piece about

By Cassiana Giardini

Letter to a Young Doctor by Johanna Heveda can be accessed online from Triple Canopy Magazine's 24th digital issue at canopycanopycanopy.com

In the examination of Johanna Hedva's essay "Letter to a Young Doctor" there is a heavy presence in how gathering of her medical information in the clinical encounters she faces objectifi es her. However, it is possible that clinical scenes can be experienced as sites where relations of care do happen.

Hedva is oft en objectifi ed as the "sick" and the mentally unstable; she is made a problem that doctor's need to "fi x." Relations of care can take place in these medical settings through trust which Hedva describes as being "what keeps people from falling apart... off er[s] small encouragement that the brokenness is bearable" (Hedva 3). Care relations can take place through doctor's who appeal to the patient as an equal, not as a 'lesser than', and through acknowledging that the patient is an expert in his/her own bodily experiences. Doctors must realize that "the patient [is] also a specialist... in possession of a set of knowledges, a vision of the world we'd like to build" (4).

It is important that there is agency given to the patient. Additionally, care happens when doctor-patient relationships do not always just look for a "cure" but at the goals the patient has for his/her illness. As Hedva describes, what oft en gets in the way of care between doctor-patient relationships is that "for patients, it oft en feels like trying to connect with a stranger with whom you have no chance of actually connecting (2). Health/data tracking becomes an ethical issue when the patient no longer feels as if his/her voice is being heard. When the autonomy and agency of the patient is stifl ed or ignored, continued data tracking of their illness is unethical. It is done so without the consent of the patient. Another example of an ethical dilemma that appears in clinical encounters is the following through of a produce by a doctor that may cause more harm than good only for the sake of the physician fi nding his own answers.