Skip to main content
Log in

The Painter and the Cameraman: Boundaries in Clinical Relationships

  • Published:
Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The issue of boundaries in clinician–patientencounters is considered through narrativeanalysis of four clinical stories in whichboundaries crossings are a self-conscioustopic. One story is by a physician as patient,two are by physicians, and one is by apalliative care nurse. The stories arediscussed using Walter Benjamin's distinctionbetween the painter, who maintains distance andsees the whole, and the cameraman, who usestechnology to penetrate realities and thenreassembles fragments. The essay argues thatdistance and closeness are ethical issues thatconstitute the possibility of clinicalencounters but the encounter also changes theclinician's sense of boundaries. The relevantethics of boundary decisions in most clinicalencounters are not procedural ethics but anethics of self-creation: in orienting toboundaries as doctors do, they createthemselves in their relations to others.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  1. Barnard D, Towers A, Boston P, Lambrinidou Y. Crossing Over: Narratives of Palliative Care. New York and London: Oxford, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Benjamin W. Illuminations. New York: Schocken, 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bridgewater R. The kiss of life. In: Borkan J, Reis S, Steinmetz D, Medalie JH, eds. Patients and Doctors: Life-Changing Stories from Primary Care. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999: 28–29.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Biro D. One Hundred Days: My Unexpected Journey from Doctor to Patient. New York: Pantheon, 2000.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Brody H. The chief of medicine. In: The Healer's Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992: 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Foucault M. The Uses of Pleasure. New York: Vintage, 1985.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Mead GH. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Neher JO. Last day in Omak. In: Borkan J, Reis S, Steinmetz D, Medalie JH, eds. Patients and Doctors: Life-Changing Stories from Primary Care. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1999: 84–88.

    Google Scholar 

  9. Parsons T. The Social System. New York: Free Press, 1951.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Reiser SJ. Science, pedagogy, and the transformation of empathy in medicine. In: Spiro H, McCrea Curnen MG, Peschel E, St. James D, eds. Empathy and the Practice of Medicine. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993: 121–132.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Frank, A.W. The Painter and the Cameraman: Boundaries in Clinical Relationships. Theor Med Bioeth 23, 219–232 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020851509738

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1020851509738

Navigation