Since the institutionalisation of modern medicine, there has existed a hierarchy in diagnostic traditions as well as a difference in the places where the doctor and the patient stand in their understanding of a disease. Social theorists have suggested that in order to attend to patients as a whole, biomedical knowledge of a disease is not sufficient and doctors must attend to the way people live with diseases. The paper will look at how doctor patient dialogue is embedded in larger social milieu and the multiple factors that construct the contrast between the social and biomedical reality of the disease. From the perception and approach of a patient toward their illnesses to the gaze of medical professionals and healthcare providers, the existing power hierarchy in the meanings that are attributed to conditions and symptoms will be explored through an ethnographic study.
The question of the limitations of the existing knowledge of the disease, and limitations at the level of language, class, and culture that bring the multiple realities of Tuberculosis into being. From the onset of a disease with the surface level symptoms like cough and weight loss in Tuberculosis to laboratory tests, medication, and surgeries, the social life of the disease can be traced back to first contact with the infection which can date back months before the identification of the first symptom. Moreover, in seeking treatment, the views and technical facilities may vary considerably leading to different diagnostic and therapeutic traditions. The paper will focus on the need to have a social audit of the politics of scientific knowledge to have public perspective for public healthcare.
