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Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions

The paper contributes to contemporary understandings of vulnerability by expanding their scope with an understanding of vulnerability as generated through institutionalised practices. The argument draws on experiential accounts of navigating the practices of diagnosis by people living with multiple...

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Autores principales: Coyle, Lindsay-Ann, Atkinson, Sarah
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6818667/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29950507
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2017-011433
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author Coyle, Lindsay-Ann
Atkinson, Sarah
author_facet Coyle, Lindsay-Ann
Atkinson, Sarah
author_sort Coyle, Lindsay-Ann
collection PubMed
description The paper contributes to contemporary understandings of vulnerability by expanding their scope with an understanding of vulnerability as generated through institutionalised practices. The argument draws on experiential accounts of navigating the practices of diagnosis by people living with multiple conditions of ill-health and disability. Vulnerability as a concept is used widely across different domains and conveys a multitude of meanings. Contemporary biomedicine, and its associated health systems and services, understands vulnerability mostly as inherent to particular physical and mental bodily conditions that put people at risk of ill-health or emotionally fragility. This may combine with a more epidemiological understanding of vulnerability as the experience of certain population groups subject to entrenched structural inequalities. Philosophers and feminists have argued that vulnerability is a universal experience of being human while political commentators have explored its potential as a resource for resistance and action. Diagnosis within medicine and psychiatry has been the subject of extensive social analysis, critique and activism. The paper draws on first-hand experiential accounts collected through face-to-face interviews with people living with multiple conditions about their experiences of diagnosis, mostly at the primary care level. We identify five aspects to diagnostic practice that are harmful and exacerbate the experience of vulnerability: temporal sequencing; diagnostic authority; medical specialisation; strategic symptom selection; medical isolation. However, these diagnostic practices are not best understood only in terms of the power asymmetries inherent to the medical consultation, but are embedded into the very institution of diagnosis. The paper thus proposes a combined approach to vulnerability that recognises it as a universal condition of humanity but one that becomes animated or amplified for some bodies, through their own inherent incapacities or the external structures of inequality, and through the practices of medicine as situated in particular times and places.
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spelling pubmed-68186672019-11-12 Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions Coyle, Lindsay-Ann Atkinson, Sarah Med Humanit Original Research The paper contributes to contemporary understandings of vulnerability by expanding their scope with an understanding of vulnerability as generated through institutionalised practices. The argument draws on experiential accounts of navigating the practices of diagnosis by people living with multiple conditions of ill-health and disability. Vulnerability as a concept is used widely across different domains and conveys a multitude of meanings. Contemporary biomedicine, and its associated health systems and services, understands vulnerability mostly as inherent to particular physical and mental bodily conditions that put people at risk of ill-health or emotionally fragility. This may combine with a more epidemiological understanding of vulnerability as the experience of certain population groups subject to entrenched structural inequalities. Philosophers and feminists have argued that vulnerability is a universal experience of being human while political commentators have explored its potential as a resource for resistance and action. Diagnosis within medicine and psychiatry has been the subject of extensive social analysis, critique and activism. The paper draws on first-hand experiential accounts collected through face-to-face interviews with people living with multiple conditions about their experiences of diagnosis, mostly at the primary care level. We identify five aspects to diagnostic practice that are harmful and exacerbate the experience of vulnerability: temporal sequencing; diagnostic authority; medical specialisation; strategic symptom selection; medical isolation. However, these diagnostic practices are not best understood only in terms of the power asymmetries inherent to the medical consultation, but are embedded into the very institution of diagnosis. The paper thus proposes a combined approach to vulnerability that recognises it as a universal condition of humanity but one that becomes animated or amplified for some bodies, through their own inherent incapacities or the external structures of inequality, and through the practices of medicine as situated in particular times and places. BMJ Publishing Group 2019-09 2018-06-27 /pmc/articles/PMC6818667/ /pubmed/29950507 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2017-011433 Text en © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2019. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted. This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt and build upon this work, for commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
spellingShingle Original Research
Coyle, Lindsay-Ann
Atkinson, Sarah
Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions
title Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions
title_full Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions
title_fullStr Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions
title_full_unstemmed Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions
title_short Vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions
title_sort vulnerability as practice in diagnosing multiple conditions
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6818667/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29950507
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2017-011433
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