The Breadth of Hopes

As a pediatrician who cares for children with life-threatening, complex chronic conditions, Dr. Chris Feudtner discusses prevalent presumptions about hope and offers alternative propositions.

Abstract

Hoping is a fundamental human activity. As a pediatrician who cares for children with life-threatening, complex chronic conditions, I hear the word "hope" on a daily basis: "I hope we can come up with the definitive diagnosis"; "I hope the treatment makes the disease go away"; "I hope we can relieve his pain"; "I hope we can go home today." Indeed, the word is uttered so frequently in clinical medicine that the underlying phenomenon is widely presumed to be well understood, a shared point of reference. Our understanding of hope, however, is not based on much empirical evidence about how . . .