ABSTRACT
Who am I? I am not the sum total of clinical statistics held on my health record. I am not 'Bed 2 7 CA breast (or whatever illness I might happen to have ) . ' When I come into your hospital as a patient, I may feel like a stranger in a foreign land. I do not speak 'clinical-ese' or 'medical-itian. ' I may not know how to get to the ward or the unit without the need for signposts, verbal directions and the hospital map, now deeply creased with greasy patches held tightly in my rather moist hand. I feel vulnerable . I feel naked even though I am wearing my clothes (or some of them) . By contrast, you may seem to me like some foreign force who, with knives and machines and other alien implements, may threaten to invade the land that is my body and cause overwhelming feelings of fear and anxiety to wash over me like waves breaking on a beach in a storm. Whatever my physical or mental condition when I arrive in your territory, you may have your way, and I will give my consent, perhaps unwillingly yet knowingly, bartering and negotiating my way through the minefield of procedures until I catch sight of the door marked Exit - and, gaining your consent, am given my discharge papers and sight of the door to my home .
