Why Aren’t More Doctors Phenomenologists?

Abstract

Several articles in this volume address the importance to medicine of the phenomenological perspective. Rather than arguing the case further, I shall try to outline why this perspective may be unappealing to physicians, even if it is quite “correct”. I write as one committed to the integration of phenomenology with medical thought and practice. But my experiences over the years in trying to carry that commitment into the arenas of medical education and direct clinical work have humbled my sense of the overall virtue of a phenomenologic approach. I believe that “correctness” alone will not carry our point, and my purpose in this essay is to explore some of the barriers to a wider acceptance of phenomenology in medicine. It is perhaps only in a context such as this that I feel free to express my anxieties and concerns; they are not meant to be disloyal to what I perceive (happily) to be a growing intellectual movement. Rather, they are cautionary thoughts grounded in a practical perspective enriched by phenomenological insight, but battle-scarred from clinical encounters within a positivist culture.