Anomalous patients: the experiences of doctors with an illness

Author(s): Morgan, M.

Journal/Book: Sociol Health Ill. 1997; 19: 108 Cowley Rd, Oxford, Oxon, England OX4 1JF. Blackwell Publ Ltd. 644-667.

Abstract: Variations in the distribution of power have been used to account for and to advocate different types of doctor-patient relationship. It might be expected that doctors who become patients would have a 'mutual' relationship with their treating doctor. Data from interviews with doctors with a recent illness show that this is not necessarily the case and may not even be doctors' preferred model of doctor-patient relationship for themselves when they become ill. Doctors constitute anomalous patients since they confound two categories generally held to be separate, 'doctor' and 'patient'. This affects the type of medical encounter they have, raising issues of identity and role performance for both patient and treating doctor. Doctor/patients may be in control of the encounter (through choice or default); they may consciously choose or have explicitly ascribed to them the status of 'ordinary patient'; some believe that doctors should be treated as extraordinary patients with particular needs dependent on their insider status as much as their pathology, The negotiation of power in the encounter between doctors and medically qualified patients is problematic but the existence of the power differential in the medical encounter emerges as 'natural' and largely as desirable, since it is linked to the ability and authority to take charge of the disorder which illness represents.

Note: Article McKevitt C, United Med & Dent Sch Guys & St Thomas Hosp, St Thomas Hosp, Dept Publ Hlth Med, Lambeth Palace Rd, London SE1 7EH, ENGLAND

Keyword(s): doctors' health; illness experiences; doctor-patient relationships; power; GENERAL-PRACTITIONERS; HOSPITAL CONSULTANTS; MENTAL-HEALTH; JOB STRESS; SATISFACTION; CONTRACT; CARE; WORK

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