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Being-in-the-Chemotherapy-Suite versus Being-in-the-Oncology-Ward: An Analytical View of Two Hospital Sites Occupied by People Experiencing Cancer †

How do people with cancer occupy places within the health system during their journey through palliative care? The answer to this question was explored by the authors as part of a wider ethnographic study of eight people’s journeys from referral to palliative care services to the end of life. This a...

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Autores principales: Hughes, Catherine, van Heugten, Kate, Keeling, Sally, Szekely, Francisc
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5483883/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28587264
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cancers9060064
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author Hughes, Catherine
van Heugten, Kate
Keeling, Sally
Szekely, Francisc
author_facet Hughes, Catherine
van Heugten, Kate
Keeling, Sally
Szekely, Francisc
author_sort Hughes, Catherine
collection PubMed
description How do people with cancer occupy places within the health system during their journey through palliative care? The answer to this question was explored by the authors as part of a wider ethnographic study of eight people’s journeys from referral to palliative care services to the end of life. This article reports on findings that have emerged from ongoing analysis that has been completed in the years proceeding data collection. An ethnographic research design was used to collect data about the participants and their family members over a three-year period. Data was collected using participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Over 380 transcripts based on field note entries and taped interviews were produced during the 1121 h of contact with participants and family members that made up the research period. Analysis of these texts identified two focal sites within Christchurch Hospital that were occupied by the participants. These were the Chemotherapy Suite and the Oncology Ward. Drawing on literature concerning previous anthropological analysis, research was conducted to understand how places affect people and how people affect places. The researchers have used a model outlined by the American ethnographer Miles Richardson to analyse two distinct sites within one hospital. As explained in Richardson’s article, whose title is used to model the title of this article, a sense of place becomes apparent when comparing and contrasting two sites within the same location. Richardson’s article is highly interpretative and relies not only on pre-existing theoretical frameworks but also on personal interpretation. The same approach has been used in the current article. Here, ethnographic methods require the researcher’s interpretation of how participants occupied these sites. Following this approach, the Chemotherapy Suite is presented as a place where medicine dominates illness, and appears as distinct from the Oncology Ward, where disease predominates and death is secreted away.
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spelling pubmed-54838832017-06-28 Being-in-the-Chemotherapy-Suite versus Being-in-the-Oncology-Ward: An Analytical View of Two Hospital Sites Occupied by People Experiencing Cancer † Hughes, Catherine van Heugten, Kate Keeling, Sally Szekely, Francisc Cancers (Basel) Article How do people with cancer occupy places within the health system during their journey through palliative care? The answer to this question was explored by the authors as part of a wider ethnographic study of eight people’s journeys from referral to palliative care services to the end of life. This article reports on findings that have emerged from ongoing analysis that has been completed in the years proceeding data collection. An ethnographic research design was used to collect data about the participants and their family members over a three-year period. Data was collected using participant observation and semi-structured interviews. Over 380 transcripts based on field note entries and taped interviews were produced during the 1121 h of contact with participants and family members that made up the research period. Analysis of these texts identified two focal sites within Christchurch Hospital that were occupied by the participants. These were the Chemotherapy Suite and the Oncology Ward. Drawing on literature concerning previous anthropological analysis, research was conducted to understand how places affect people and how people affect places. The researchers have used a model outlined by the American ethnographer Miles Richardson to analyse two distinct sites within one hospital. As explained in Richardson’s article, whose title is used to model the title of this article, a sense of place becomes apparent when comparing and contrasting two sites within the same location. Richardson’s article is highly interpretative and relies not only on pre-existing theoretical frameworks but also on personal interpretation. The same approach has been used in the current article. Here, ethnographic methods require the researcher’s interpretation of how participants occupied these sites. Following this approach, the Chemotherapy Suite is presented as a place where medicine dominates illness, and appears as distinct from the Oncology Ward, where disease predominates and death is secreted away. MDPI 2017-06-05 /pmc/articles/PMC5483883/ /pubmed/28587264 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cancers9060064 Text en © 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Hughes, Catherine
van Heugten, Kate
Keeling, Sally
Szekely, Francisc
Being-in-the-Chemotherapy-Suite versus Being-in-the-Oncology-Ward: An Analytical View of Two Hospital Sites Occupied by People Experiencing Cancer †
title Being-in-the-Chemotherapy-Suite versus Being-in-the-Oncology-Ward: An Analytical View of Two Hospital Sites Occupied by People Experiencing Cancer †
title_full Being-in-the-Chemotherapy-Suite versus Being-in-the-Oncology-Ward: An Analytical View of Two Hospital Sites Occupied by People Experiencing Cancer †
title_fullStr Being-in-the-Chemotherapy-Suite versus Being-in-the-Oncology-Ward: An Analytical View of Two Hospital Sites Occupied by People Experiencing Cancer †
title_full_unstemmed Being-in-the-Chemotherapy-Suite versus Being-in-the-Oncology-Ward: An Analytical View of Two Hospital Sites Occupied by People Experiencing Cancer †
title_short Being-in-the-Chemotherapy-Suite versus Being-in-the-Oncology-Ward: An Analytical View of Two Hospital Sites Occupied by People Experiencing Cancer †
title_sort being-in-the-chemotherapy-suite versus being-in-the-oncology-ward: an analytical view of two hospital sites occupied by people experiencing cancer †
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5483883/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28587264
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/cancers9060064
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