I just loved this chapter while reading because it gave me not only the information about the topic, but also an insight of the life itself. What attracted me the most was about responsiveness. The text book says, "Health care communication ethics understands health not in what happens to us, but in our response to that which meets us. ... To engage health care communication ethics, one looks for ways to respond to the illness in the larger context of a life, not just for answers to "fix" ill health." When you have a cancer, you will take lots of medicines. If you take them just to fix your cancer without any efforts to positively respond to the illness, you won't be able to cure because you don't have a sense of hope and just rely on medicine itself. On the other hand, if you have a responsibility to actively respond to the illness, you will be more likely to cure because you are going to be hard to not only take the medicines, but also receive all kinds of treatements with postiveness and hope.
I also loved this passage, "Each time health not wanted by us meets us in our lives, we have the opportunity to practice the pragmatic necessity of response, readying ourselves for the final freedom - our responses to the inevitability of death." It never sees any illness as an obstacle that we should avoid or be frustrated when we meet, but as a great opportunity to learn how to react and respond when we meet death in the end of our lives. I personally think this indefinitely positive attitude is just so much beautiful and this is how I want to live my life . I hope this sense of hope and postiveness is always remembered to all of us on the earth.
Hi Jeehyo,
ReplyDeleteI like how you engaged the need to take action of an illness that manifests itself physically by also tackling its emotional needs. If someone focuses too much on the physical illness, they can become depressed and shut other people from their lives, ineffectively handling the illness but also failing in communicating.
Another interesting aspect of health care is how an illness can affect everyone involved and not just the patient. The book states “to climb back to health from a moment of inconvenience or a deep abyss as a patient or as a caregiver requires more than physical strength alone” (Arnett, Fritz, and Bell, P201). I think that the true communication forms between a patient and his or her families and healthcare providers lies on how everyone responds to the treatment at hand, because that is communication in its truest form. As you mentioned in your post, all kinds of treatments need positivism and hope.
I enjoy how you acknowledged that physical health is something that needs to be engaged mentally as well. Devastating ends to health problems are something every single person is going to have to encounter sometime in their life. Health problems are inevitable, but if a person does not address the mental set backs this can give them, then the physical illness becomes more challenging as well.
ReplyDeleteCancer is an illness that my family has had to deal with directly. Several members of my family have battled this illness, and it has been so hard on them and their families. However, if my family did not give them care and hope, then they would have been gone sooner than wanted. Being care for whether that's by family or professionals is vitally important to the way we perceive illness, and I liked how you pointed out that this is still important.