TY - JOUR

T1 - Redeeming Mr. Sawbone: compassion and care in the cultures of nineteenth-century surgery

AU - Brown, Michael

PY - 2017/11/29

Y1 - 2017/11/29

N2 - ObjectiveTo complicate understandings of the emotions involved in the surgical encounter.MethodsI draw on an extensive body of historical material to demonstrate the importance of compassion and sympathy to the professional identities and experiences of early nineteenth-century British surgeons and use this information to reflect on what lessons can be learned for contemporary practice.ResultsThis research demonstrates that compassion and sympathy for the patient were a vital part of surgery in the decades immediately preceding the introduction of anaesthesia in the 1840s and that they played a vital role in shaping the professional identity of the surgeon.ConclusionThis research suggests that we might develop more complex and inclusive ways of thinking about the doctor-patient relationship in surgery and that we can draw on the experiences of the past to ensure that we take compassion seriously as a vital element of the intersubjective clinical encounter.

AB - ObjectiveTo complicate understandings of the emotions involved in the surgical encounter.MethodsI draw on an extensive body of historical material to demonstrate the importance of compassion and sympathy to the professional identities and experiences of early nineteenth-century British surgeons and use this information to reflect on what lessons can be learned for contemporary practice.ResultsThis research demonstrates that compassion and sympathy for the patient were a vital part of surgery in the decades immediately preceding the introduction of anaesthesia in the 1840s and that they played a vital role in shaping the professional identity of the surgeon.ConclusionThis research suggests that we might develop more complex and inclusive ways of thinking about the doctor-patient relationship in surgery and that we can draw on the experiences of the past to ensure that we take compassion seriously as a vital element of the intersubjective clinical encounter.

KW - Surgery

KW - Emotion

KW - Compassion

KW - Doctor-patient relationship

KW - History

KW - Professional identity

U2 - 10.1186/s40639-017-0042-2

DO - 10.1186/s40639-017-0042-2

M3 - Journal article

VL - 4

JO - Journal of Compassionate Health Care

JF - Journal of Compassionate Health Care

M1 - 13

ER -