Medical gaze

The term medical gaze was coined by French philosopher and critic, Michel Foucault in his book, The Birth of the Clinic (1963) (trans. 1973), to denote the dehumanizing medical separation of the patient's body from the patient's person (identity); (see mind-body dualism). He uses the term in a genealogy describing the creation of a field of knowledge of the body. The material and intellectual structures that made possible the analysis of the body were mixed with power interests: in entering the field of knowledge, the human body also entered the field of power, becoming a possible target for manipulation. Originally, the "medical gaze" was confined to postmodern and poststructuralist academic use, but now frequently is used in graduate medical and social work courses. [cite journal | author=St. Godard, E. E. | title=A better reading | journal=Canadian Medical Association Journal | year=2005 | volume=173 | issue=9 | pages=1072-1037 | url=http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/173/9/1072doi|10.1503/cmaj.051067]

The French and American revolutions that spawned modernity also created a "meta-narrative" of scientific discourse that held scientists, specifically medical doctors, as sages who would, in time, abolish sickness, and, so, solve all of humanity's problems. For the nineteenth-century moderns, medical doctors replaced the discredited medieval clergy; physicians save bodies, not souls. This myth was part of the greater discourse of the humanist and Enlightenment schools of thought that believed the human body to be the sum of a person: biological reductionism that became a powerful tool of the new sages: Through thorough examination (gazing) of a body, a doctor deduces symptom, illness, and cause, therefore achieving unparalleled understanding of the patient — hence, the doctor's "medical gaze" was believed to penetrate surface illusions, in near-mystical discovery of hidden truth.

The Medical Gaze in Media

Postmodern cinema often realistically portrays the medical profession, showing how the medical gaze operates. In Requiem for a Dream, a middle-aged woman is humiliated, and ultimately ignored, by her general practitioner as she slowly succumbs to amphetamine addiction. In Fight Club, the anti-hero character, suffering insomnia, begs a doctor's help, but is prescribed a placebo remedy. Both films might be situations wherein the "expert" doctor fails to note the human dimensions of sickness, and, instead, prescribes remedies based upon his/her objectifying medical gaze.

Other medical dramatisations depict doctors fighting the medical gaze's propensity to dehumanize. In "House", a contemporary television drama produced in the United States, the protagonist sometimes finds himself running awry of the non-bodily causes of disease; Curb Your Enthusiasm, a television comedy, often satirically shows the medical gaze's dehumanization.

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