ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on how underlying ideologies of patient regulation and responsibility are communicated through signs that are located in hospital waiting rooms. Waiting rooms in clinics can serve multiple purposes in addition to acting as a repository for patients and visitors. In the summer of 2006 we undertook formal observations of twelve waiting room spaces in three hospitals located in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Interior designs have significant implications for how people live out their lives 'inside'. The chapter provides a brief overview of therapeutic geographies with specific reference to the design and layout of hospital spaces. The 'therapeutic landscape' concept is a common thread which connects many of the disparate studies on therapeutic geographies. R. A. Kearns, for example, has shown that spaces within the clinic where patients gather and wait serve as sites of socialization for important community events and activities.