How We Experience Illness: The Lonely Patient (March 25, 2009)

Michael Stein, M.D. (Medicine and Community Health, Alpert School of Medicine, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island), a general internist and author of The Lonely Patient, began his lecture with questioning, What is a humanist? and concluded with, By watching and listening, you will know what it means to be a humanist. In developing his thoughts, Dr. Stein addressed several human qualities and the impact that illness has on relationships with oneself and others. Illness, acute or chronic according to Stein, is a personal/solitary and lonely journey within a chamber (i.e. ones body) that has or continues to become alien and which may lead to feelings of separation from the healthy and of connection with fellow sufferers, like in the case of hospital roommates. Posing more questions such as: Should loneliness be a universal co-morbidity?; How does a physician know when a patient is suffering with loneliness?; How do you define and measure loneliness?; Can loneliness studies be subject to scientific inquiry?; and What are the right questions to ask?, Dr. Stein suggested that more needs to be learned and the pathway to understanding and coping with loneliness may lead to newly found or re-found relationships with God, self, and/or others. Talking, storytelling, and human touch may be some of the useful tools to help navigate and endure this state of being.

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