Many privileges come with having a doctor in the family: appointments squeezed into busy schedules as personal favors, a conspicuous lack of financial strain, an ability to comprehend both treatment plans and health care systems. But familial and professional roles often clash in a health crisis.

“It’s impressive,” an x-ray technician said to Dr. David Alfandre as they gazed together at an image of Alfandre’s young son’s lung, opaque with pneumonia. The technician’s interested tone came from a place of collegiality—he interacted with Dr. Alfandre as he would a physician, rather than an overwhelmed father. Soon, Dr. Alfandre found his professional and parental roles incompatible: “I wanted to just be my son’s dad, and have the doctors explain things to me like I had no medical knowledge.” He adopted a persona of “deliberate ignorance,” shedding his physician rhetoric in order to get the “support, education, and patient explanations” he needed.

Dr. Alfandre’s story is included in “Doctor in the Family: Stories and Dilemmas Surrounding Illness in Relatives,” a collection of essays in the current issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics.

…continue reading ‘Should Doctors Treat Family Members?’

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