How to teach care-giving

A Harvard professor known for training the lens of anthropology on the social elements of disease draws upon his own experiences caring for his wife to explain what he believes is missing from medicine.

Medical anthropologist Dr. Arthur Kleinman defines care-giving in an essay published online today in the Scottish newspaper The Scotsman. She has a neurodegenerative disorder that has impaired her memory and movement, diminishing her independence, he writes.

"I give you this personal sketch because it is the best I can do to illustrate what care-giving entails, and why it is so crucial to everyone's life – and to the human condition," he writes. "Care-giving includes what happens when hope and consolation are abandoned and when all there is to do is to be present with the sufferer, sharing his or her suffering by simply – and usually silently – being there."

That element is missing both from medical education and in doctors' practice of medicine, he argues. Students see nurses, social workers, and the patient's support system doing the practical and emotional work of care-giving. Medical schools would do well to bring that kind of caring into the curriculum, he says.

"The practitioner must come to feel that the art of care-giving is as much at stake as the science and technology of diagnosis and treatment," he concludes.