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Dr. Arthur Frank

Degrees:

1975 - Ph.D. - Yale University
1973 - M.Phil - Yale University

Most Significant Accomplishments:

A.W. Frank, At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness. Boston: Houghton Mifflin: 1991. New 2002 edition with an Afterword. The winner of the 1996 Writers' Award from the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship (Washington, D.C.), this book has been translated in four languages and anthologized in multiple scholarly and trade anthologies on medical sociology and illness experience. The concept of "the remission society" is frequently cited.

A.W. Frank, The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness, and Ethics. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995. This book remains one of the most cited works on illness experience and narrative ethics; it has been translated into Japanese. It has been anthologized in several of the best-selling medical sociology texts, including those edited by Peter Conrad and Kathy Charmaz. The framework of the restitution, chaos, and quest narratives of illness has been used in numerous articles and books and become part of the vocabulary of medical sociology and humanities in medicine.

A.W. Frank, The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Medicine, and How to Live. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004. This book expands the scope from illness experience to include stories of physicians and nurses. Generosity is presented as an antidote to demoralization in both the receiving and giving of medical care. Setting personal stories with a framework including multiple philosophers, the book shows the possibility of generosity and its moral importance.

A.W. Frank, "Emily Scars: Surgical Shapings, Technoluxe, and Bioethics." The Hastings Center Report, March-April 2004, 34, no. 2, 18-29. This article is my contribution to the Hastings Center working group on "Surgically Shaping Children," funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (US). A revised version of this article has appeared in the edited volume from the working group (Surgically Shaping Children, Erik Parens, ed., Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006).

A.W. Frank, "Asking the Right Question about Pain: Narrative and Phronesis." Literature and Medicine, Fall 2004, 23, no. 2, 209-225. The editorial preface to the issue describes the article as making "several significant moves, offering nothing less than a new model of reading…Frank breaches the formal divide between text and reader, insisting that we recognize that a story is not a static object but exists amid multiple relationships." The article is presented as having both clinical implications in the treatment of pain, as well as being a new model for the narrative study of medicine.

Research interests:

Illness experience, health care, and bioethics; Narrative Inquiry and Narrative Practice; Sociology of the Body, Sociological Theory.

Narrative Selves in a World of Stories (working title); a book based on the last five years of presenting workshops on narrative inquiry to scholars in North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa
Continuing work in bioethics; especially issues involving: the interplay between narratives and principles in ethical decision-making, moral distress among medical staff, and medical enhancement practices and technologies (including medical consumerism).

Analysis of materials from my 2001-04 interview study, "Survivorships as moral choice," funded by Social Science and Humanities Council of Canada; eventual writing of a book on illness experience and altruism in an age of moral freedom. A three-year interview study of people who have used their own experience of serious illness as a basis for engagement in some form of service work.

Ph. D.s:
Jessica Gish
Thomas Lynch (2007)

Honours & Awards:

Resident Fellowship - Killam Trusts (2008)
Resident Fellowship - Killam Trusts (2002)
Distinguished Researcher Award - Faculty of Social Sciences (University of Calgary) (1998)

Representative Publications:

Frank, Arthur W., Corman, Michael, Gish, Jessica and Lawton, Paul. "Healer/Patient Interaction: New Mediations in Clinical Relationships." In Handbook on Qualitative Health Research.. Ed. I. L. Bourgeault, R. DeVries and R. Dingwall (Eds),. (to appear) Sage Publications
Publication Type:Book Chapter
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "Interpretive Phenomenology, Clinical Ethics and Research" Health 10.1 (2006): 113-116
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "What is Dialogical Research, and Why Should We Do It?" Qualitative Health Research (to appear)
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "The Perfect Storm of Enhancement" The Hastings Center Report (2005): 46-47
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "Asking the Right Question about Pain: Narrative and Phronesis" Literature and Medicine 23.2 (2004): 209-225
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. Narratives of spirituality and religion in end-of-life care Blackwell and British Medical Journal Books, London (2004): 132-145
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. Moral Non-fiction: Life Writing and Children's Disability Cornell University Press, Ithaca (2004): 174-94
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "Dignity, Dialogue, and Care" Journal of Palliative Care 20.3 (2004): 207-211
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. Generosity, Care, and a Narrative Interest in Pain IASP Press, Seattle (2004): 289-300
Publication Type:Book
ISBN:0-931092-82-5
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "Ethics as Process and Practice" Internal Medical Journal (Australasian College of Physicians and Surgeons)34 (2004): 355-357
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "After the Methods, the story: From Incongruity to Truth in Qualitative Research" Qualitative Health Research 14.4 (2004): 430-440
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "Dwelling In Grief" The Hastings Center Report (2004): 46-47
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. The Renewal of Generosity: Illness, Hospitality, and Dialogue University of Chicago Press, Chicago (2004)
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "Emily's Scars: Surgical Shapings, Technoluxe, and Bioethics" The Hastings Center Report 34.2 (2004): 18-29
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. The Bioethics of Biotechnology: Alternative Claims of Posthuman Futures Routledge, London (2003): 261-270
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. How Stories Remake What Pain Unmakes IASP Press, Seattle (2003)
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "Survivorship as Craft and Conviction: Reflections on Research in Progress" Qualitative Health Research 13.2 (2003): 247-255
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "The Painter and the Cameraman: Boundaries in Clinical Relationships" Theoretical Medicine23 (2002): 219-232
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. What's Wrong With Medical Consumerism? Routledge, London (2002): 229-245
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. The Extrospection of Suffering: Strategies of First-person Illness Narratives Lexington Books, New York (2002): 165-78
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "How Can They Act Like That? 'Clinicians and Patients as Characteres in Each Other's Stories'" The Hastings Center Report 32.6 (2002): 14-22
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. Experiencing Illness Through Storytelling (refereed) Kluwer, Dordrecht (2001): 229-245
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. "Can We Research Suffering?" Qualitative Health Research 11.3 (2001): 353-362
Publication Type:Journal Article
 
Frank, Arthur W.. The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness and Ethics (Translation in Japanese) University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1995)
Publication Type:Book
 
Frank, Arthur W.. At the Will of the Body: Reflections on Illness (Translations in Spanish, Dutch, German, and Japanese) Houghton Mifflin, Boston (1991)
Publication Type:Book