Abstract

In December of 1899, Sir John Scott Burdon-Sanderson delivered an address to the Middlesex Hospital Medical Society in London on the relation between science and medicine. Commenting specifically on the future of medicine in the upcoming century, he criticized the gap between scientific research in academic settings and the practice of medicine in the clinical setting. He ends by stating that “all depends on whether you accept the proposition I have submitted to you—namely, that the science of medicine, even more than the art, holds the promise of the future” (Burdon-Sanderson 1900, 255). Burdon-Sanderson’s proposition was actualized in the United States through the Flexner Report of 1910, which helped to universalize what medical education would come to look like in the country: the emphasis was placed squarely on science, rather than art (Flexner 1910). While there are still gaps between clinical practice and scientific research, there is no doubt that modern medicine is scientific medicine. There is also no doubt that scientific medicine leads to better health outcomes (Duffin 2010).However, some have argued that the emphasis of medicine as a science has left the art of medicine behind, to the detriment of modern medicine. Thomas Duffy, for instance, an internist at the Yale School of Medicine, states that the aftermath of the Flexner Report “created an excellence in science that was not balanced by a comparable excellence in clinical caring” (2011,276). Indeed, at the onset of our current century, many called for a reinvestment in the art of medicine so as to balance the emphasis on science (The Commonwealth Fund 2002; Committee on the Roles of Academic Health Centers in the 21 st Century 2003; Association of American Medical Colleges 2004). The burgeoning field of medical humanities—that is, the interdisciplinary field dedicated to demonstrating “how the arts and humanities inform and 2elevate the work of healing” (Campo 2005)—is evidence that such calls have been heard. While we surely want to celebrate scientific medicine, there are certain areas of medical practice where the art of medicine is as important, if not more important , as the science of medicine. We argue that one of those areas is the sphere of cancer care in which health professionals are asked not only to treat patients with cancer, but also to help them navigate through what is oftentimes one of the scariest, most vulnerable, and suffering-ridden times of their lives. Using concepts from the phenomenological tradition, we aim to provide philosophical clarity to situations in the medical setting in which health professionals must treat the whole person, rather than simply the person’s body, in order to provide proper patient care, thus highlighting an element of the art of medicine. We end by providing three principles that we think can help guide phenomenologically-informed cancer care.