• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer

Log in
  • Search
    • Search All SAGES Content
    • Search SAGES Guidelines
    • Search the Video Library
    • Search the Image Library
    • Search the Abstracts Archive
www.sages.org

SAGES

Reimagining surgical care for a healthier world

  • Home
    • Search
    • SAGES Home
    • SAGES Foundation Home
  • About
    • Awards
    • Who Is SAGES?
    • Leadership
    • Our Mission
    • Advocacy
    • Committees
      • SAGES Board of Governors
      • Officers and Representatives of the Society
      • Committee Chairs and Co-Chairs
      • Committee Rosters
      • SAGES Past Presidents
  • Meetings
    • SAGES NBT Innovation Weekend
    • SAGES Annual Meeting
      • 2026 Scientific Session Call for Abstracts
      • 2026 Emerging Technology Call for Abstracts
    • CME Claim Form
    • SAGES Past, Present, Future, and Related Meeting Information
    • SAGES Related Meetings & Events Calendar
  • Join SAGES!
    • Membership Application
    • Membership Benefits
    • Membership Types
      • Requirements and Applications for Active Membership in SAGES
      • Requirements and Applications for Affiliate Membership in SAGES
      • Requirements and Applications for Associate Active Membership in SAGES
      • Requirements and Applications for Candidate Membership in SAGES
      • Requirements and Applications for International Membership in SAGES
      • Requirements for Medical Student Membership
    • Member Spotlight
    • Give the Gift of SAGES Membership
  • Patients
    • Join the SAGES Patient Partner Network (PPN)
    • Patient Information Brochures
    • Healthy Sooner – Patient Information for Minimally Invasive Surgery
    • Choosing Wisely – An Initiative of the ABIM Foundation
    • All in the Recovery: Colorectal Cancer Alliance
    • Find A SAGES Surgeon
  • Publications
    • Clinical / Practice / Training Guidelines, Statements, and Standards of Practice
    • Sustainability in Surgical Practice
    • SAGES Stories Podcast
    • Patient Information Brochures
    • Patient Information From SAGES
    • TAVAC – Technology and Value Assessments
    • Surgical Endoscopy and Other Journal Information
    • SAGES Manuals
    • MesSAGES – The SAGES Newsletter
    • COVID-19 Archive
    • Troubleshooting Guides
  • Education
    • Wellness Resources – You Are Not Alone
    • Avoid Opiates After Surgery
    • SAGES Subscription Catalog
    • SAGES TV: Home of SAGES Surgical Videos
    • The SAGES Safe Cholecystectomy Program
    • Masters Program
    • Resident and Fellow Opportunities
      • MIS Fellows Course
      • SAGES Robotics Residents and Fellows Courses
      • SAGES Free Resident Webinar Series
      • Fluorescence-Guided Surgery Course for Fellows
      • Fellows’ Career Development Course
    • SAGES S.M.A.R.T. Enhanced Recovery Program
    • SAGES @ Cine-Med Products
      • SAGES Top 21 Minimally Invasive Procedures Every Practicing Surgeon Should Know
      • SAGES Pearls Step-by-Step
      • SAGES Flexible Endoscopy 101
    • SAGES OR SAFETY Video Activity
  • Opportunities
    • Fellowship Recognition Opportunities
    • SAGES Advanced Flexible Endoscopy Area of Concentrated Training (ACT) SEAL
    • Multi-Society Foregut Fellowship Certification
    • Research Opportunities
    • FLS
    • FES
    • FUSE
    • Jobs Board
    • SAGES Go Global: Global Affairs and Humanitarian Efforts
  • OWLS/FLS
You are here: Home / Abstracts / Beneath the Bandages: Conceptualizing surgery in patient narrative

Beneath the Bandages: Conceptualizing surgery in patient narrative

Magdalene Lugowski, MD. Memorial University of Newfoundland

Introduction: Patients often turn to narrative to grapple with the meaning of illness. Technology such as social media encourages such activity on a large scale. However, narratives of surgery are complex to construct and commonly incorporate information from multiple sources. It is worth considering the ways in which patients reconstruct their surgical experiences to understand what information patients seek out and how surgeons can be of help.

Methods: This analysis offers a close reading and considers the narrative techniques used in two accounts of surgery written by patients two hundred years apart. Frances Burney’s account of her mastectomy, completed without anaesthesia, was composed as a letter to her sister Esther Burney. The second text, Brain on Fire, was originally written as an article for the New York Post by Susannah Cahalan, and later expanded into a book, which has, in turn, inspired a movie by the same title. She too recounts her surgery, but twice removed from her lived experience, by both madness and modern anaesthesia.

Results: Though their circumstances differ greatly, Burney and Cahalan deploy some of the same techniques to narrate their surgical experience. Subverting genre expectations regarding the directness of their chosen methods of communication – letter, memoir – the authors create carefully crafted texts, in which they assume the medical gaze for their own use, mingling this with their own voices to reclaim the experience. The effect differs however, as Burney’s account contains the vivid recollection of truly living through surgery unanaesthetized, while Cahalan must fall back on her professional persona, and rely on her medical record and the voices of others, as her own memories (if they exist) are largely inaccessible. In adopting the medical gaze, both authors engage to an extent with the experience of their surgeons. The construction of each narrative and the various literary techniques employed by each author raise questions about the extent to which anyone can narrate their own surgery coherently and invite readers to contend with the complexity of trying to capture such an experience.

Conclusion: The texts considered here were written by women who were writers before they became patients, and they employ their pre-existing narrative skills to produce these accounts, using similar techniques. Exploring the ways in which patients narrate surgical experience can allow clinicians to develop effective partnerships with patients that support this process of seeking meaning in illness.


Presented at the SAGES 2017 Annual Meeting in Houston, TX.

Abstract ID: 95222

Program Number: P620

Presentation Session: Poster Session (Non CME)

Presentation Type: Poster

View this Poster

133

Share this:

  • Click to share on X (Opens in new window) X
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) Facebook
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window) LinkedIn
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window) Pinterest
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window) WhatsApp
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window) Reddit
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window) Pocket
  • Click to share on Mastodon (Opens in new window) Mastodon
  • Click to share on Threads (Opens in new window) Threads
  • Click to share on Bluesky (Opens in new window) Bluesky

Related


sages_adbutler_leaderboard

Hours & Info

11300 West Olympic Blvd, Suite 600
Los Angeles, CA 90064

1-310-437-0544

[email protected]

Monday – Friday
8am to 5pm Pacific Time

Find Us Around the Web!

  • Bluesky
  • X
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2025 · SAGES · All Rights Reserved

Important Links

Healthy Sooner: Patient Information

SAGES Guidelines, Statements, & Standards of Practice

SAGES Manuals