Mutual recognition through medical humanities in palliative care

Relying on the concept of recognition in Ricoeur&s;s narrative perspective, this chapter wishes to understand how medical humanities can foster mutual recognition between healthcare providers and patients in hospitals. It investigates a palliative medicine department in a private oncology hospital that fully uses medical humanities practices in an integrative medicine model. The study observes several situations at different temporalities until death to look for different modalities of recognizing the voice of patients and HCPs in the organizing of care (mutual recognition). We show how medical humanities reframe end-of-life care as a space of relational, aesthetic, and moral meaning-making, where patients are restored as subjects, and HCPs reclaim their roles as capable, caring professionals. We argue that medical humanities offer more than therapeutic value: they represent an alternative organizational epistemology. Narratives, artefacts, and aesthetic practices serve as coordination devices, enabling continuity of care and ethical engagement across professional and temporal boundaries. In this context, mutual recognition emerges not only as an ethical encounter but also as a principle of organizing care under uncertainty. The chapter contributes to bridging medical humanities and organizational studies by offering a recognition-based framework for understanding the organization of dying.