Andy
Senior Member (Voting rights)
Overview
Katharine Cheston discusses the treatment of people with ME and its wider implications in terms of affective injustice in healthcare.
Abstract
Action for ME’s 2025 Big Survey, which was produced as part of a collaboration between Action for ME and the Institute for Medical Humanities, gathered data from over 5000 people living with ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) and Long Covid. Respondents (85% of whom self-identified as women) painted a bleak picture. When asked to describe their experiences of seeking NHS healthcare for their ME, more than half said they had been disbelieved by an NHS healthcare professional. One in three had been made to feel that their ME was their own fault, and almost two in five had had an encounter with a clinician that was traumatic or traumatising.
Investigative journalist George Monbiot recently described the treatment of people with ME as the ‘greatest medical scandal of the twenty-first century.’ Drawing on preliminary analysis of the Big Survey data, alongside semi-structured interviews conducted during my PhD, I will interrogate this scandal, illuminate its gendered dimensions, and demonstrate how it constitutes a compelling case study of affective injustice in healthcare.
[Online and in person]
Booking link
Katharine Cheston discusses the treatment of people with ME and its wider implications in terms of affective injustice in healthcare.
Abstract
Action for ME’s 2025 Big Survey, which was produced as part of a collaboration between Action for ME and the Institute for Medical Humanities, gathered data from over 5000 people living with ME (myalgic encephalomyelitis) and Long Covid. Respondents (85% of whom self-identified as women) painted a bleak picture. When asked to describe their experiences of seeking NHS healthcare for their ME, more than half said they had been disbelieved by an NHS healthcare professional. One in three had been made to feel that their ME was their own fault, and almost two in five had had an encounter with a clinician that was traumatic or traumatising.
Investigative journalist George Monbiot recently described the treatment of people with ME as the ‘greatest medical scandal of the twenty-first century.’ Drawing on preliminary analysis of the Big Survey data, alongside semi-structured interviews conducted during my PhD, I will interrogate this scandal, illuminate its gendered dimensions, and demonstrate how it constitutes a compelling case study of affective injustice in healthcare.
[Online and in person]
Booking link