Student, supervisor, researcher, researched : relationships and the qualitative research journey

My (Wendy's) story is about relationships, between student and supervisors, and between researcher and the researched. It is about how shifts in these relationships through shifts in my position in relation to others generated insights. The story begins with my long-standing interest in medical uncertainty. Differences in medical opinion, often to the point of rupturing collegiality and professional etiquette, are well known within the medical community, although they are usually sanitized for public debate. Despite a logical connection, doctors in one clinical specialty may refuse to refer patients to another. An example might be oncologists not referring patients to palliative care specialists when treatments no longer work, although publicly they appear to have complementary roles. The basis for such differences is a failure of science. When scientific knowledge and method cannot provide cures and answers, other factors come into play, such as the clinician's personal biases, prior experiences, and institutional cultures and histories.