title: Charting Phelan's 'To Suffer a Sea Change'.
abstract: Physicians and healthcare workers usually perceive their medical record entries as documentation rather than construction. In the following article, we extract a medical record from a narrative, Peggy Phelan's pathography of glaucoma, 'To Suffer a Sea Change'. From information about encounters described by Phelan, an ophthalmologist reconstructs progress notes similar to those that would be key to a glaucoma patient's medical record. Rather than condemning the arcane pointilism of the medical record as a poverty of language, or isolating the pathography as an academic text, we hope to instead appreciate what their collaborative dialogue offers the study of disease. While the points of divergence between these texts will demonstrate failures in communication, they will also unearth an enriched dialogue.
authors.affiliation: Berkeley, California, USA.
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Winkelman
authors.affiliation: The Gavin Herbert Eye Institute, University of California, Irvine, California, USA.
authors.forename: Jacqueline
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ng
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine, Veterans Affairs Palo Alto Health Care System and Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California, USA.
authors.forename: Audrey
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Shafer
mesh_terms: D003142:Communication; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D006801:Humans; D008499:Medical Records / Q000592:standards; D033262:Narration; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*; D010820:Physicians
keywords: Surgery