An anatomy of illness

Abstract

Because it focuses primarily on the sick body (disease), medicine ignores many of the concerns and needs of sick people. By listening to the stories of patients in the clinic, on the Internet, and in published book form, health care providers could gain a better understanding of the impact of disease on the person (illness), what it means to patients over and above their physical symptoms and what they might require over and above surgery or chemotherapy. Only by familiarizing themselves with the entire emotional landscape of illness, which includes fear, anger, shame, guilt, and above all loneliness, can the healthy--medicine as well as society in general--hope to heal in a comprehensive manner.