Dr Who: observations from the anthropologist’s apprentice

One of the outcomes I treasure most from my PhD was my introduction to cultural anthropology. I had an academic giant of a supervisor. He allowed me to stand on his shoulders and get a very different view of the world. He opened my mind to so many possibilities, particularly what it might mean to be a person. I explored what factors make people do the things they do, what they believe in and how their experiences shape the way they behave and interact with others. That said, I’m not a ‘qualified’ anthropologist.

However, in our house, I’m the anthropologist, and Jane is the apprentice. It is a long running private joke that comes partly from the different ways we have of viewing the world. I have a ‘film track’ running in my mind that is constantly fuelled by observing what is going on around me. Some of the things I see get instantly discarded. There are other things I observe which linger in my mind, and it is these that make me pause, question or reflect. It is a more nuanced form of ‘people watching’ that exchanges superficial fantasy for a possible analysis reflecting someone else's reality.

This way of being, (or rather my way of being), sometimes surfaces in me asking Jane if she saw, or heard, of felt something I might have just observed. More often than not she will say no, and I will nearly always respond with ‘well you are not a trained anthropologist’. And we laugh with each other as we both know, however much I might posture, neither of us are. Critically, observation is the key factor in cultural anthropology studies, whether this happens through being as an active participant, or as a non-participant observer.

Now during the time Jane has been an inpatient in hospital she appears to have honed her observation abilities and her anthropological analytical skills too. Last week, following her successful shunt operation Jane was moved from the high care ward to a step-down neurological ward. My word what a difference a short corridor trip can make. Now despite what follows here, Jane continues to make progress, albeit it slowly. Once again thank you to all the readers of this blog who have steadfastly supported us both.

So, the spacious 4 bedded high care ward, the calm, and the quiet, has long gone. Replaced instead with an overcrowded (19 beds in a 16 bedded ward), noisy, hot, and often a seemingly chaotic environment. There is little privacy. It took me 3 days to get Jane a bedside cupboard and she is still eating her meals off a tray, on her lap, as she lays in bed. The hospital pharmacy has allegedly been unable to source her medication for over 48 hours. I have now fetched her long term and necessary medication from home. 

As bad as some of the conditions are (and I will pursue my concerns somewhere other than in this blog), what is more disheartening are the apparent attitudes of some of the folk working on the ward. For example, Jane, drawing upon her growing anthropological knowledge and skills, observed that none of the doctors caring for her introduced themselves while conducting the daily ward round or when undertaking a procedure. Nearly 12 years after Kate Granger started her #hellomynameis campaign, I found this both sad and hard to accept.

For those readers who don’t know of Kate Granger, she was a medical doctor who was also a patient living with terminal cancer. During her inpatient treatment, she found it frustrating that so many of the health care professionals caring for her failed to introduce themselves. Health care professionals introducing themselves to patients is not just common courtesy, it is something more fundamental. Kate Granger described such simple introductions as the ‘first rung on the ladder to providing truly person-centred, compassionate care’. Absolutely. It is the bedrock upon which effective approaches to active listening and therapeutic conversations can be built.

Please don’t get the wrong impression. I know, understand, and deal with the extraordinary pressures facing the NHS every day. The underlying factors causing these pressures have all been captured many times by folk who can describe them more eloquently than I will ever be able to do. But for me (and more importantly, for Jane) it’s just not about poor buildings, aging equipment and a depleted skilled professional workforce: its the lack of kindness in human interactions that matters. Kindness always matters and in the health care setting, being kind toward those you are caring for can positively impact upon a persons sense of self and aid their recovery.

Kindness to others, kinship and relationships have long featured in cultural anthropological research. Indeed, my PhD examined the professional and non-professional relationships between GPs in a so-called quasi health care market. Many of the anthropological studies have consistently noted that the factors that promote and foster kindness includes providing people with the opportunity to observe kindness of others. I think that an overcrowded neurological ward, where everyone can observe and hear the conversations of others, provides a great place to test out this idea.