• DOI:10.1353/PBM.1983.0037
• Corpus ID: 40178782

The Healer-Patient/Family Relationship in Vonda N. McIntyre's "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand"

@article{Jones1983TheHR,
  title={The Healer-Patient/Family Relationship in Vonda N. McIntyre's "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand"},
  author={A. H. Jones},
  journal={Perspectives in Biology and Medicine},
  year={1983},
  volume={26},
  pages={274 - 280}
}

• A. H. Jones
• Published 7 January 2015
• Medicine
• Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

Never before has so much attention been focused on the physicianpatient relationship. Philosophers, theologians, historians, lawyers, sociologists, and economists aU over the country are trying to analyze and define what that relationship is and what it should be. They offer abstract constructs such as the paternaüstic model and the contractual model. But as helpful as such models may be in theoretical arguments, their practical application is limited by their abstract nature. The complexities of human relationships have long resisted codification; the relationship between healer and patient is no exception. Literary models of the healer-patient relationship are helpful for precisely this reason: they flesh out the dynamics of the human relationship that underUes a particular healer-patient encounter. By so doing, they demonstrate the many nuances of emotions that enter into any human exchange—and especially into one surcharged with the possibility of death. An unusually rich and instructive example of the healer-patient/family relationship is offered by Vonda N. Mclntyre in her powerful story "Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" [I]. Little known outside science fiction circles, the story won the 1973 Nebula Award—given by the Science Fiction Writers ofAmerica—for best novelette of the year. Classical in its formal simplicity, the story is mythic and universal in its thematic significance. The questions impUcit in the story are of interest for all healer-patient/ family relationships: Must physicians bear the responsbiUty for their patients' ignorance, fear, and stupidity? If so, how far are they obligated—or allowed—to go in protecting patients and themselves from that ignorance, fear, and stupidity? What should they do, for example, if family fears interfere with lifesaving treatment of a patient? Must