ABSTRACT
Academically dealing with something that is not there (i.e. knowledge) certainly calls for new ways of presenting and registering of what is not there. Accordingly, this chapter concludes with a fictional thought-piece from Ann Kerwin, a narrative contemplation of how different individuals cope with new knowledge, from a patient suspecting but refusing to acknowledge that she may have cancer, to oncologists struggling to admit their own ignorance of treatment options. Medical ignorance bifrons obstructs. It also harbors hope. The face of new beginnings opens onto a vast domain of unknowns, a fertile terra incognita teeming with potential solutions. It is, perhaps, an opaque or dimly understood universe of things, or relationships one has yet to discover or fail to recognize, that one represses, suppresses, misconstrues or misinterprets. By secrecy, omission, and misdirection, by suppressing or falsifying information, and other means, ignorance producers aim to strategically create and maintain a lack of knowledge of medically related matters of import to others.
