Date of Award
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Education (MEd)
Department
Interdisciplinary
First Advisor
Nash, Robert
Abstract
The world of cancer care is a strange land to a person newly diagnosed with cancer. Like someone who leaves the familiarity of home and arrives in a foreign place, the person with cancer loses equilibrium and feels lost, experiences an assault on self-identity, and encounters an alien language and culture. It is this person who knocks as a stranger on the door of cancerland. Many philosophic and religious traditions obligate those receiving the stranger to provide a deep hospitality. One model of the practice of deep hospitality is summarized as door, table, space. When applied to the relationship between the cancer care provider and the patient/stranger, this hospitality can humanize the experience for both parties and is education in its elemental sense of drawing out and leading forth—into healing and wisdom.
Recommended Citation
Lever, Theresa, "Welcoming the Stranger to the Land of Cancer:" (2011). Graduate College Dissertations and Theses. 137.
https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/graddis/137