Managing Hope and Spiritual Distress : The Centrality of the Doctor-Patient Relationship in Combatting Stem Cell Travel

• Stem Cell travel refers to patients with a variety of diseases and debilitating disorders who travel abroad to receive unproven stem cell treatments. Current academic research investigating how to combat stem cell travel has yet to offer a complete understanding of the link between patient hope and autonomy, and building or losing trust in medical authorities. To combat stem cell travel, understanding how to manage patients’ potential for hope or spiritual distress is crucial (Hyun, 2013). This article argues that re-conceptualizing the doctor-patient relationship is important to further grasp how to manage patient hope and spiritual distress. This article promotes a notion of the doctor-patient relationship that moves beyond physician paternalism and patient consumerism; instead the doctor-patient relationship should be viewed as an encounter where patient autonomy is encouraged and guided by physicians through the joint co-creation of treatment. We conclude that sharing is both fuel for stem cell travel and a means to combat it: the first through patients’ bodily sharing of their cells with stem cell purveyors for the latter’s profit and patients’ sharing information and experiences online; the second through doctors and patients sharing the construction of treatment. This manner of framing the issue offers a more realistic and ethical lens through which to view the doctor-patient relationship and combat stem travel than has been previously asserted. In making this argument, the article combines both a bioethical and ethnological approach.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Annan humaniora -- Etnologi (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Other Humanities -- Ethnology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

stem cell travel

doctor patient relationship

hope

patient autonomy

and co-creation

bioethics

ethnology

Publikations- och innehållstyp

kap (ämneskategori)

ref (ämneskategori)