Venturing Inside the Body: Experiences of Pain, Anatomy and Age among Danish Patients Undergoing Awake Arthroscopic Surgery

When patients who undergo awake arthroscopic surgery follow the surgery on a screen, medical image technologies enable a rare look inside one’s own body. Based on ethnographic fieldwork at an orthopedic surgery unit in Denmark, we investigate how patients experience their bodies during surgery. Patients see surgery as proof of their pain, experience an anatomical re-categorization, and contemplate the decay of the aging body. We argue that awake arthroscopic surgery constitutes a liminal setting transforming patients’ perceptions of their body and their sufferings. Furthermore, we discuss how awake arthroscopic surgery can be understood as a frame for producing new realities. It constitutes a particular way of seeing and understanding that highlights the seductiveness of the visual as an objective carrier of truth and reminds us to remain critical toward the power of certain frames of knowledge production in medical settings.