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- Title
The “Conflicted Dying”.
- Authors
Mohammed, Shan; Peter, Elizabeth; Gastaldo, Denise; Howell, Doris
- Abstract
Using a poststructural perspective, we examine the subjectivities that are produced when advanced cancer patients seek life extension through biomedical treatments. Seven case studies were developed that included 20 interviews with patients, family, nurses, and physicians recruited from a tertiary hospital in Canada, 30 documents, and 5 hours of participant observation. We identify seven types of subjectivity: (a) the Desperate Subject, (b) the Cancer Expert Subject, (c) the Proactive Subject, (d) the Productive Subject, (e) the Mistrusting Subject, (f) the Model Patient Subject, and (g) the Suffering Subject. We characterize the “conflicted dying,” a contemporary figure who holds multiple perspectives about seeking curative treatment despite the acknowledgment of death. Using active strategies to gain access to treatment, this figure resists traditional arrangements of power/knowledge established by health care providers. We suggest that the search for life extension is a process of shaping the self to fit certain aesthetical traits associated with surviving cancer.
- Subjects
CANADA; CANCER patient psychology; DISCOURSE analysis; INTERVIEWING; LONGEVITY; CASE studies; RESEARCH funding; SELF-efficacy
- Publication
Qualitative Health Research, 2016, Vol 26, Issue 4, p555
- ISSN
1049-7323
- Publication type
Academic Journal
- DOI
10.1177/1049732315572772