Re: OANDP-L Digest - 17 Jan 2000 to 18 Jan 2000 (#2000-1

Re: OANDP-L Digest - 17 Jan 2000 to 18 Jan 2000 (#2000-1

Jo Nagels

1/24/2000

Dear Steve,

I think this is the best reply so far,

Jo, cpo




You wrote
----------
> From: mnewsnew < <Email Address Redacted> >
> To: <Email Address Redacted>
> Subject: Re: OANDP-L Digest - 17 Jan 2000 to 18 Jan 2000 (#2000-1
> Date: Tuesday, January 25, 2000 4:02 AM
>
> Personally, I do not mind being called a patient, and I understand that
> most prosthetists use this term with respect and a desire to help me
> live my life. But I may have some insight into why some amputees do not
> like this term.
>
> Patient is not simply a word, but is a social role characterized by the
> experience of illness, suspension of other social roles (e.g. employee,
> student, etc.) during the illness, submission to medical authority, and
> so on. It is a specifically medical role which ends when the person no
> longer experiences illness and returns to their other everyday social
roles.
>
> Many amputees are not ill. Even those who are tend to consult MDs for
> their illnesses and prosthetists for their prosthetic needs. Disabled
> people are not a priori ill, and the term patient is not always
> appropriate for persons in good health who happen to have physical
> impairments.
>
> I think some politicized, educated amputees also resent the implication
> that, as patients, they must submit to medical authority. The roles of
> good patient and bad patient are more about power dynamics and
> compliance than anything else. I believe many amputees (and
> prosthetists) want a cooperative partnership rather than the one-sided
> relationship of authoritative healer/compliant patient who needs to be
> managed, which the term patient implies.
>
> On the other hand, I don't like the consumer paradigm either; buying a
> prosthesis is substantially different than buying other consumer
> products. The coffee and donut I purchased this morning did not have the
> same psychological impact on me as my last leg. However, this doesn't
> mean that an increasingly medicalized paradigm isn't problematic,
> particularly for amputees. What are the stakes? When prosthetists call
> amputee patients, who gains? Does being a patient empower amputees?
> Does it empower prosthetists in relation to other health care
> professionals and their patients? Is it an accurate word for describing
> healthy, mutually beneficial prosthetist-amputee relationships?
>
> Steve Kurzman
>