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Abstract

Personal illness narratives are used here to highlight deficiencies in hospital care and to challenge hospitals to become more hospitable and less like factories for treating illnesses. An alienating hospital environment where staff focus on technical tasks and functions can drive patients and family members into a state of deep isolation and disconnectedness just when they need compassion and understanding. It is also suggested that hospital staff may actually benefit from learning to relate to patients at an emotional level and that compassion fatigue and burn out are more likely to develop when staff maintain their distance. Acute health care still has much to learn from models of hospice and palliative care that recognize the personhood of both patients and staff.

Keywords

illness narratives connectedness hospitality compassion adaptation

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The Inhospitable Hospital

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