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From the beginning of recorded history the patient's role has been shaped by the priest-healer and doctor. The persona of the patient is assumed within a culturally sanctioned transaction during which the person foregoes a degree of autonomy in the search for healing. The branches of Indo-European mythology each depict gods who require sacrifice for healing, with examples found in images from the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, as well as the Celtic votive offerings of pre-Roman Britain. As these mythologies were subsumed within, or displaced by, early Christianity, healing properties were transferred to the relics of saints. Bede describes how in Anglo-Saxon England healing was in the power of the bishop, who acted as a conduit for God's power mediated through relics. The transition of Medicine into its full secular identity did not occur until late in the 18th century when the patient was re-constructed in the image of Foucault's medical gaze. The post-modern interpretation of this construct is now challenged by the co-modification of health in the marketplace of the consumer society. Family doctors may have to extend their role to being a health-broker for their clients, but still within the patient-centered medical idiom. Although the patient requires advice as to her choice in exactly the same way she consults a stockbroker, her experience as she undergoes interventive diagnostic procedures may be loss of control: within an MRI scanner she becomes literally objectified. We propose that the unresolved tension between these two modes of being a patient may be sublimated through anxiety, anger or other negative emotions, with litigation being a potential outcome. This pictorial history of the patient's journey to become the health consumer provides a philosophical framework for educating students and recent medical graduates about this aspect of professionalism

Stream: History, Historiography, Teaching and Learning, Religion, Spirituality, Science, Environment and the Humanities

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

John Boulton is a Professor in the School of Medical Practice and Population Health, Faculty of Health at the University of Newcastle. Rachel and John share an interest in medical humanities.