The medical gaze reframed: A phenomenological investigation of patient visibility in oncology

Abstract

Contemporary health research often examines patient objectification, patient self-objectification, and good patient performance as separate concerns. Treating them in isolation makes it difficult to see how they combine to shape what patients feel able to express in clinical encounters. To address this gap, this study examines how cancer survivors describe objectification, internalization, and performance within oncology care. Through this analysis, we develop a unified analytic account of these three experiences. In doing so, we reframe the “medical gaze” in existential terms as the “medical look,” by drawing on Sartre’s account of how becoming visible to another reshapes lived experience and existence. We interpret clinical visibility as a structure that unfolds across encounters, rather than as isolated interactional events. Drawing on 29 interviews with cancer survivors, our findings show that being positioned through clinical routines, adopting those framings as self-measures, and calibrating self-presentation in anticipation of clinical judgment were lived as connected movements within one structure of visibility. Recognizing this continuity clarifies communication pressures and constrained agency in oncology, and identifies points where clinical practice may ease the conditions under which patients manage how they appear.