Patient

“Thus the patient’s point of view remains enigmatic. On the one hand, there is a call to consider the patient in history of medicine as an important partner, voice, subject, object or whatever you like to name it with the ultimate aim of rewriting the history of medicine according to the patient’s view. On the other hand, we have statements that the patient has actually disappeared from the medical narrative or is merely a by-product of medicine. A full debate between these two positions – that the patient’s view can be unearthed form the sources against the statement that the patient is a construct of the medical gaze – has, to my knowledge, never taken place” (Condrau, 529). Contra Porter, patient history as “history from below” doesn’t work because: “it over-emphasizes polarity. Porter’s patients stand against doctors – there is not much room for the social or local environment. The family or, lo and behold, other occupational groups such as nurses and midwives play only a minor role in such an account. . . . most histories from below were driven by a political interest [e.g., women’s history derived from feminist movement; black history derived from civil rights movement]. A comparable political background for patients is not easy to unearth” (533,534).