Uncertain Futures. Communication and Culture in Childhood Cancer Treatment. Ignasi Clemente

This book examines children and young people’s attempts to participate in conversations about their own treatment throughout uncertain cancer trajectories, including the events leading up to diagnosis, treatment, remission, relapse, and cure or death. Clearly and compellingly written, Clemente relies on a new multi-layered method to identify six cancer communication strategies Illustrates that communication is central to how children, parents, and healthcare professionals constitute, influence, and make sense of the social worlds they inhabit—or that they want to inhabit Provides ethnographic case studies of childhood cancer patients in Spain, using children’s own words Examines the challenges of how to talk to and how to encourage patients’ involvement in treatment discussions In his critique of the “telling” versus “not telling” debates, Clemente argues that communication should be adjusted to the children’s own needs, and that children’s own questions can indicate how much or little they want to be involved