Narrative Medicine Monday: Locked-in Syndrome

Pakistani bioethicist Anika Khan reviews Jean-Dominique Bauby’s remarkable story in her essay “Locked-in syndrome: inside the cocoon.” In it, she describes how Bauby, an editor of a prominent magazine who suffered a debilitating stroke, lived out his days entirely paralyzed but with mental clarity completely intact. Bauby’s only method of communication, and how he eventually wrote his 1997 book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly was by blinking with his left eyelid. He used a French alphabet provided by his speech therapist to painstakingly blink his way to communication with the outer world.

Khan relays some of Bauby’s remarkable insights into living in such a state and she also reflects on how medical providers need to take a “more empathetic look at the incapacity and helplessness experienced not only by patients with locked-in syndrome, but by analogy, other patients who have no way of giving voice to their experience of sickness. Often, patients become diseases, numbers and syndromes to healthcare professionals who have repeatedly seen illness and have lost the capacity to relate to the experiences of patients.”

Writing Prompt: Have you as a patient ever felt misunderstood by your medical provider? What were you trying to relay and what was the response that revealed to you the miscommunication? Think about your visceral reaction to this encounter. As providers, what specifically have you done to combat the risk of patients becoming “diseases, numbers and syndromes?” How do you maintain this empathy while still preserving some emotional boundaries? Write for 10 minutes.

 

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