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How Tolstoy and Solzhenitsyn define life and death in cancer: patient perceptions in oncology
Barend W Florijn1, Ad A Kaptein
1Medical Psychology, Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC), Leiden, The Netherlands. b.w.florijn@lumc.nl
Unlabelled:
REASON FOR THE STUDY: Clinicians use conserving care in their therapeutic decisions. Discussing death as part of the treatment influences patient's perception and their acceptance of death. We compare 2 literary patients' perceptions of cancer and death (Solzhenitsyn's Cancer ward and Tolstoy's The death of Ivan Ilyich), with a contemporary patient perception.
Results:
The patient interview revealed naive cancer perceptions: every treatment option should be tried. In Solzhenitsyn's novel, the main character finds a goal in love; Tolstoy conceptualizes death as a solution for patients' moral issues.
Conclusions:
Tolstoy's novel shows death as an honest prospect. Solzhenitsyn's novel shows the opposite: the prospect of love and life helps the protagonist patient psychologically through his disease. The patient interview revealed no discussion of death at all.
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