Dramatic Art, Medical Ethics and Rehabilitation: Patient-Centred Therapeutic Relationship in Omobowale’s The President’s Physician

Abstract

Literature, over the years, has become a potent instrument in humanizing medical practice, which manifests in different forms. Scholars in the domains of literature and medicine have identified the significance of literary knowledge in clinical or medical experiences. From consultation, diagnoses and treatments, humanistic tools constitute the hallmarks of medical practice, which are evident in the therapeutic relationship that involves the patient and care-giver. Literary writers, the world over, have consciously or unconsciously created human health awareness by representing medical episodes and therapeutics as central themes; in such texts, biomedical experiences like illnesses, diseases and ethical issues of medicine are foregrounded. A significant layer of literature and medicine is the exploration of ethical standards in the medical profession, where characterization and dialogues are used to emphasize physician-patient relationship in the therapeutic process. In Nigeria, where medical practice is predominantly doctor-centered, one encounters how physicians and healthcare professionals consistently contravene the Hippocratic Oath, the official and/or sacred document that contains the ethics of medicine. This article examines the appropriation of the patient-centered therapeutic relationship in Emmanuel Babatunde Omobowale’s play, The President’s Physician, highlighting the import of medical ethics in the rehabilitative process. The play is given a close-reading and subjected to qualitative, literary analysis, identifying patient-centered ethical principles like non-maleficence, patient autonomy, beneficence and justice that should form the bedrock of medical practice. Omobowale, in his play, explores the need for medical doctors and other healthcare givers to provide care that is respectful of, and responsive to the preferences of their patients. The analysis is anchored on Stephen Kekeghe’s Pathotextualism which underscores the interplay of illness or disease (pathos) and text (literature).