La « prise en charge globale » en oncopédiatrie

Abstract

Medical progress has contributed to transforming the hospital care of children suffering from cancer. The second cancer plan of 2009 asserts the importance of reinforcing the opening of pediatric oncology services to all parties involved : childcare workers, teachers and parents alike. All of these actors contribute to the materialization of a space of patient care that reunites diverse institutions : family, school and hospital. This article clarifies the ways this institutional organization -which seeks to maintain certain frames of reference within hospital walls- constitutes a space both similar and different to the world outside of the hospital. The shape of patient care can be disconcerting to teachers, childcare workers and parents whose roles and functions are altered by the hospital institution. It also confuses the children involved, as they are removed from their habitual social zones and held in a new world which strangely attempts to resemble the former one.

Keywords

• cancer
• care
• hospital
• school
• ill children
• heterotopy