On the Origin of Pieces: The Existential Self as Part of the Hospital and Plath’s Tulips

Health is a social issue and the hospital is a social place. One of the rather interesting yet underestimated issues of medicine today is the improvement of the conditions of seriously ill patients in hospitals. With some reference to the work of Sylvia Plath, this short philosophical paper attempts to set some questions, sensitize about the patient's psyche and make clear that patients - especially the chronically ill or the terminally ill - carry the existential drama of a body that sees its decay in a very difficult surrounding.