Patient Undone

Discovery

BBC

Science, Technology

4.3 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2019

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Professor Deborah Bowman reveals how a diagnosis of cancer has transformed her view of medical ethics and what it means to be a patient. As Professor of Ethics and Law at St George's, University of London, Deborah has spent the past two decades teaching and writing about medical ethics, the moral principles that apply to medicine. It's taken her down countless hospital corridors, to the clinics and the wards where medical ethics plays out in practice, behind closed doors, supporting healthcare practitioners and their patients to negotiate uncertainty and conflict. This is the field of clinical ethics and, each time, the 'patient' has been central to her response. Yet in the autumn of 2017, everything changed. Deborah was diagnosed with breast cancer and it signalled the beginning of her undoing, not just personally but professionally too, playing havoc with what she thought she knew about clinical ethics. Patient autonomy - literally 'self-rule'- is one of its cornerstones - a patient's right to make decisions about their healthcare. So what does autonomy mean if the 'self', she thought she knew, was so changeable and confusing? Deborah returns to the Royal Marsden Hospital where she is a patient, to explore this - with both her personal and professional hats on. Producer: Beth Eastwood Main Image: Deborah Bowman. Copyright: Deborah Bowman

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan
0:05.2	I'd really like to tell you a bit about what we do. I'm Julie Mackenzie and I commission comedy
0:10.1	podcast at the BBC. It's a bit of a dream job really. Comedy is a bit of a dream job really.
0:13.0	Comedy is a fantastic joyous thing to do because really you're making people laugh,
0:18.0	making people's days a bit better, helping them process, all manner of things.
0:22.0	But you know, I also know that comedy is really
0:24.3	subjective and everyone has different tastes. So we've got a huge range of comedy on offer from
0:29.8	satire to silly, shocking to soothing, profound to just general pratting about.
0:35.3	So if you fancy a laugh, find your next comedy at BBC Sounds.
0:40.2	This is Discovery from the BBC World Service.
0:43.5	I'm Professor Deborah Bowman, a medical ethicist,
0:46.5	and this is Patient Undone.
0:49.0	My personal story of how a serious illness propelled me into the role of patient, a role that has
0:55.3	transformed my view of what it actually means to be one, and my thinking on medical ethics
1:02.0	too.
1:03.0	I've spent 20 years teaching and writing about the moral principles that applied to medicine.
1:12.0	And I've walked many hospital corridors like this
1:14.4	one to the clinics and the walls where medical epics plays out in practice between
1:19.7	clinicians and their patients behind closed doors. This is the field of clinical ethics and it's
1:27.1	taken me from the beginning to the very end of life, supporting the people
1:30.9	involved to find a way through their uncertainty and conflict.
1:35.4	And each time the patient has been central to my response.
	...

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