Health
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Organ donation and transplantation has been extensively addressed in the biomedical and bioethics literature in relation to debates around organ allocation and procurement strategies, and concerns about consent, coercion and commodification. This article addresses the topic sociologically, drawing on data from face-to-face in-depth interviews undertaken between 2008 and 2010 with organ and tissue recipients, anonymous altruistic donors and donor family members to discuss questions of reciprocity and intercorporeality that arise in the course of tissue exchange. In particular, the article examines the place of anonymity protocol for organ donors and transplantation recipients in New Zealand and their responses to conventions and scripts surrounding this rule. The article concludes by calling for discussion to re-examine anonymity protocol and rituals around organ donation and transplantation, citing lessons from gamete donation policies and recent law in New Zealand as productive for thinking through matters of personhood and identity relating to organ transfer.
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Patients commonly experience some physicians' ways of interacting with them as detached and indicating a lack of concern for their welfare. This is likely to add to the distress experienced by a person seeking healing, as well as interfering with the exchange of information required for good medical care. Despite contemporary medical schools' focus on clinical communication, and on training for 'patient-centred' practice, problems with the relations between doctors and patients are still widely acknowledged. ⋯ In this article I draw on a clinical narrative to elucidate my interpretation of engagement, which entails practices of attentiveness, respectful dialogue and commitment. I propose that practising engagement may help medical students and doctors to infuse their clinical encounters with empathy and compassion, with the aim of providing care that is experienced as being more humane. This practice has the potential to contribute to innovative pedagogical approaches to clinical communication.