Wit: Professor Vivian Bearing's Journey Through Ovarian Cancer

 Witis an exploration of Professor Vivian Bearing's journey through stage four ovarian cancer. Through most of her life she viewed life and death through the eyes of her favorite poet, John Donne. Now, as she is faced with true, irreversible death, she begins to see life through a different perspective. A perspective of love, regret, and sadness.Chinn and Kramer's patterns of knowledge are portrayed throughout this film in a number of different ways. The first pattern of knowledge is known as empirics. Empirics is based on fact, science, descriptions, observations, and generalizations (Chinn et al., 2022). Empirical pattern of knowing does not often concern itself with the happiness of the patient or the patient's family. Dr. Kelekian (the doctor that starts Bearing on the chemo treatment) and Dr. Posner (a resident of Kelekian) both present empirical patterns of knowing. Dr. Posner even shouts that Bearing is nothing but a research subject as she is dying. The next pattern of knowledge is known at ethical knowing. According to Chinn and Kramer, ethical knowing focuses on the question: is this right and just (2022)? In the movie, Susie the nurse is having a conversation with Bearing in the middle of night due to Bearing have a crisis relating to fear of death. During their conversation Susie asks Bearing what she would like to do should her heart stop beating. She is presented with the options of Do Not Resuscitate and Full Codes, and she then explains the difference between the two. In doing this, Susie made the ethical decision to present Bearing with decisions that would mean either prolonging her suffering or ending it when her time came. She did this despite Bearing being considered an important research subject. Personal knowing is the next pattern of knowledge. This pattern of knowledge focuses on the interpersonal relationship formed between the nurse and the patient. It is important that the nurse sees the patient as a unique individual with unique attitudes, beliefs and qualities. While other nurses and professionals seem to struggle with this concept throughout the movie, Susie demonstrates it in multiple occasions by connecting with Bearing on a more personal level. She can be seen talking with Bearing, laughing with her, sharing personal insight with her, asking about her past, and many other things that build their relationship. This experience improved Bearing's end of life treatment and health. The next pattern of knowledge, esthetic knowing, takes the knowledge of empathy knowing and builds upon it. Esthetic knowing asks the questions, "what does this mean" (Khuan, 2006, p. 16)? It is built on experience and Susie displays her own esthetic knowing multiple times throughout the movie. On one occasion she comes and measUres Bearing's urine output and on another she comes into the room to check her IV after hearing the beeping that signifies an occlusion. Emancipatory Knowing is the most recent addition to the patterns of knowledge. This form of knowing is even more advanced and combines previous forms of nursing to make changes that influence all future patients and not just the nurse's current set of patients. Emancipatory Knowing recognizes the injustices of the system and those that utilize it set out to make a change and stand up for what is write in either a completely corrupt system or a system that simply needs a tiny change to make a difference. Susie, the nurse within the film that seems to embody most if not all of the patterns of knowledge, demonstrates emancipatory knowing when she stands up for Bearing after Dr. Posner called a full code after he realized that her heart had stopped. Susie yells and screams for them to stop the code due to Bearing's DNR status, despite Dr. Posner being the one that initiated the code. Jon Donne's poem "Death be not Proud" takes a stance against death itself. The narrator argues that death is less powerful than he believes, as there are greater powers than himself at work. The narrator states that after a short rest, we wake to eternal life, and death itself will then die.