Towards a Contextual Virtue Ethics of Medical Displacement
Caterina Baffa, Boston College, Newton, MA
The suffering that comes with illness is often a socially and mentally alienating experience, one that healthcare can exacerbate through a practice of medicine that is emotionally distant and technical. The experiences of illness and of medical treatment may result in a patient feeling displaced from their communities, their routines, and from their very selves. This isolation due to suffering has been articulated by a number of thinkers, including theologian Stanley Hauerwas. Hauerwas responds to this reality by proposing that medicine develop an ethics of presence, wherein medical professionals serve as essential bridges to reconnect the isolated patient back to themselves and their community. Such a practice of medicine requires developing certain virtues and practices to accompany the suffering patient, remaining steadfastly present to their pain, even over great strain and long periods of time.
Even still, for many patients, the alienation that emerges from their experience of illness compounds other forms of displacement, such as locational, cultural, and linguistic displacements. For example, we can think here of immigrants and migrants who cross national boundaries and experience displacement as a result of living in a political and cultural milieu that differs from their original community as well as ethnic minorities living within a dominant culture that differs from their own. These experiences may overlap with their experience of healthcare, for example in the form of language barriers with healthcare professionals as well as differences in moral values while evaluating treatment options. The experience of these different types of displacements then can deepen the estrangement of patients experiencing illness and suffering, inviting medicine to attend to patients’ particular contexts and needs. To address this experience, I turn to contextual theological discourse and particularly mujerista theology, which prioritizes the needs and wisdom of marginalized people, especially Latinas, who have firsthand experience with various types of displacement. By focusing on the theological insights of Latina women, mujerista scholar Ada María Isasi-Díaz provides a practical, concrete ethic grounded in the experiences and narratives of people living at the margins of society. This perspective can help to shed light on how to better understand the unique needs of patients experiencing a multiplicity of forms of displacement that isolate and harm them.
As such, I propose that it would be fruitful to engage in a conversation between Hauerwas’s approach to medical ethics based in practicing presence and Isasi-Díaz’s narrative, everyday ethics to discern the values and practices necessary to fully accompany patients who are holding the burden of intersectional modes of displacement. Taken together, these perspectives can help to illuminate the strengths, weaknesses, shared features, and differences of Hauerwas’s and Isasi-Díaz’s strains of thought. They can then be held in a synthesis of polarities to tease out the features of an ethics that prioritizes steadfast presence in the face of patients’ isolation in suffering with an attentiveness to the particular needs of patients who are especially vulnerable to multiple layers of displacement impacting their well-being.
Even still, for many patients, the alienation that emerges from their experience of illness compounds other forms of displacement, such as locational, cultural, and linguistic displacements. For example, we can think here of immigrants and migrants who cross national boundaries and experience displacement as a result of living in a political and cultural milieu that differs from their original community as well as ethnic minorities living within a dominant culture that differs from their own. These experiences may overlap with their experience of healthcare, for example in the form of language barriers with healthcare professionals as well as differences in moral values while evaluating treatment options. The experience of these different types of displacements then can deepen the estrangement of patients experiencing illness and suffering, inviting medicine to attend to patients’ particular contexts and needs. To address this experience, I turn to contextual theological discourse and particularly mujerista theology, which prioritizes the needs and wisdom of marginalized people, especially Latinas, who have firsthand experience with various types of displacement. By focusing on the theological insights of Latina women, mujerista scholar Ada María Isasi-Díaz provides a practical, concrete ethic grounded in the experiences and narratives of people living at the margins of society. This perspective can help to shed light on how to better understand the unique needs of patients experiencing a multiplicity of forms of displacement that isolate and harm them.
As such, I propose that it would be fruitful to engage in a conversation between Hauerwas’s approach to medical ethics based in practicing presence and Isasi-Díaz’s narrative, everyday ethics to discern the values and practices necessary to fully accompany patients who are holding the burden of intersectional modes of displacement. Taken together, these perspectives can help to illuminate the strengths, weaknesses, shared features, and differences of Hauerwas’s and Isasi-Díaz’s strains of thought. They can then be held in a synthesis of polarities to tease out the features of an ethics that prioritizes steadfast presence in the face of patients’ isolation in suffering with an attentiveness to the particular needs of patients who are especially vulnerable to multiple layers of displacement impacting their well-being.