Private Experience and Public Expectation on the Cancer Ward

Abstract

A sociologist relates her experiences with staff and patients on a cancer ward. Within a short time the staff perceived her as a threat to their system of efficiency-oriented norms and regulations, a system which she, in turn, came to regard as an institutionalized defense against that-which-could-not-be-confronted. In becoming acquainted with the patients themselves, the phenomenon of pain was brought to the fore. The patient's existence sometimes was dominated by pain, and yet there were significant differences from one cancer patient to another in how they interpreted and related to pain. These variations included positive valuation of pain as a symbol of life. Ethnic differences in the interpretation of pain, especially between people from Latin and Anglo-Saxon backgrounds, were observed. In general, pain behavior in terminal patients was strongly colored by the individual's feelings concerning impending death. The observer also shares some of her personal feelings of the rhythms of hospital life and their impact upon the individual.