A Physician’s Auto-Hermeneutics of Medical Praxis: Curating Meanings and Voice Themes Using Dialogical Prism

Abstract

This study is an auto hermeneutic phenomenological inquiry on the lived experience of medical praxis of 40 years of a family medicine specialist. It utilized the\ dialogical lens to extricate the essential meanings she finds most defined in the three main dialogical landscapes of clinical, educational, and societal (administrative/advocative) she has traversed. The dialogical vertical (spiritual) and horizontal (self, others both, in actual and virtual platforms) scaffoldings were elucidated through a structured methodology of collecting self narratives, integrating, and interpreting. The resulting prism, which may be universally applied to any professional praxis, consists of curated meaning typologies of trust-building, nurturing, redeeming, stewarding, and inspiring. These typologies are illustrated by conversational snippets and were juxtaposed with pre-existing theories and models including most upheld Filipino cultural values. The congruence of her analyzed vertical and horizontal scaffoldings along these typologies was also a major explication of this work Implications to professional praxis, life-long learning, and qualitative research were drawn. A reflection on the process of doing (auto) hermeneutic phenomenology as either/both personal and scholarly undertaking informs (and hopefully inspires) readers to do the same.