Uncertainty, Decision-making And Team Work In High-tech Healthcare: Person-soulmindbody-hood & Relational Medicine

The Relational Medicine project is growing. In 2014 we published our  practice framework "Relational Medicine — Personalizing Modern  Healthcare: The Practice of High-Tech Medicine As A RelationalAct".  Building on this foundation, we now present a cutting-edge and fully  developed single case recording analysis of consecutive encounter  interactions in a dramatically accelerating life-and-death  decision-making situation in the high-tech medical practice of Advanced  Heart Failure during which practitioners, patient, and family face  multiple uncertainties as the decision-making process unfolds and the  patient's condition deteriorates. We show how a multi-professional team  including a cardiologist, cardiac surgeon, critical care unit nurse and  fellows discuss life-prolonging options with their patient and family.  We make visible the essential roles of each multi-disciplinary team  member in helping frame for the patient and family what is going on and  the changing options while attending to the patient's  PERSON-soul-mind-body-HOOD. In bringing different data, perspectives,  and facets of understanding to bear, this book offers a novel approach  to studying high-tech medical care grounded in Federica Raia's  Relational Ontology framework of understanding everyday practice. Using a  micro-ethnographic data analysis and a participatory research strategy,  we unravel a heretofore unrecognized universe of practice themes and  present suggestions for medical education and training aimed at  continuous practice improvement.