When the doctor cried. Forgotten griefs of the health system

Despite the daily contact with serious conditions and uncertain life prognoses, death is usually a taboo topic among health professionals who see themselves as maximum defenders of life. The objective of this article is to investigate the subjective experiences of health professionals in the department of Humahuaca (province of Jujuy, Argentina) in relation to the death of their patients, based on the narratives with which they try to communicate them. The analysis will be made from an existential phenomenological perspective anchored in the anthropology of experience. In this sense, the work takes into account the intersubjective dimension of ethnography and makes a thorough approach to the experience of both the ethnographer and his interlocutors, considering the influence of the structures that mediate these experiences. In conclusion, it can be said that professionals experience the patient’s death as a loss which, as in all grief, must be understood and negotiated internally. This gives rise to a set of transformations with which they seek to recover from that difficult experience in order to continue working.

Keywords:
Medical Anthropology; Doctor-patient relationship; Death; Intersubjectivity; Phenomenology