Layout 1 [Qualitative Research in Medicine & Healthcare 2021; 5:10168] [page 23] In her final editorial for Qualitative Research in Medi- cine and Healthcare, Mariaelena Bartesaghi described how her health condition prevented her from continuing as Edi- tor-in-Chief. Dr. Bartesaghi described herself as a character in the type of stories that we research and report about in this very journal. Like so many people whose stories have been told and reflected upon in QRMHsince Dr. Bartesaghi founded the journal in 2017, her story “is one about the bur- dens of being a patient as well as a human being who suf- fers” (p. vi).1 I am honored to carry the journal forward as the new ed- itor, but I wish that it could have come to me through dif- ferent circumstances. In a way, I am experiencing a facet of health narrative that I have never considered before. When our family, friends, and colleagues become unable to do the things that they love because of illness, what does it mean when we take their place? What are we to feel inside about assuming the role of another who left their position, not be- cause they wanted to, but because illness had left them un- able to proceed any further? I am fortunate in that Dr. Bartesaghi graciously re- minded everyone participating in this journal about what it means to keep on with the work that she initially envi- sioned and pursued through four volumes. “Another body,” she wrote, “will continue my work, your work, the work of Qualitative Research in Medicine and Healthcare in examining, validating, and ultimately speaking of the experiences of those [who experience illness] in these pages” (p. vi).1 As I write these words, I can’t help thinking that Dr. Bartesaghi’s mention of “another body” is an apt phrase in- deed. The body that is me writing these words has already spent much of the summer and well into the fall in the role of Editor-in-Chief (such a lofty title!). On the other hand, “body” is also a collective term. All of us who work on this journal as writers, reviewers, editorial board members, pub- lishers, copyrighters, and, of course, readers, inhabit our sin- gular bodies, yet we also constitute a communal body with shared interests in the intersectionality among qualitative re- search, health, illness, and the human condition(s). This is our journal, and I look forward to working with you all in keeping Dr. Bartesaghi’s vision of what QRMH the vibrant journal that it is. like anyone who has conducted qualitative research knows, our chosen method of scholarship is highly iterative. Moving forward almost always requires simultaneously looking backward to where we have come from and ascer- taining how we ended up where we are in this moment. In that iterative spirit, I have taken the opportunity to read with deep appreciation the editorial that Dr. Bartesaghi provided for the first issue of QRMH (2017).2 In that brief essay, Dr. Bartesaghi provided the foundation for what it means to do qualitative research with respect to communication, health, and medicine: As many of you already know, qualitative research is not for the faint of heart. It is reflexive, positioned and like life itself, often messy and focused not on producing easy answers but on the very process of questioning. It is, at best, acutely aware [of] its on- tological consequentiality. Unlike research studies under positivist or post-positivist auspices, true qual- itative research does not separate the observer from the lived experience of those whom she observes. Rather, it is by understanding the ways in which our own research practices bring forth the very world in which we live that qualitative researchers have a stake in understanding the very reflexive dynamics of how we constitute the world...(p. i)2 Mindfully positioned and messily bent on questioning our own assumptions about health, illness, patients, providers, the medical industry, government policies, and the ways that all those things are embedded in cultural sys- tems shaped by history, economics, epistemology, and many other factors, we move forward, backwards, and sideways following our winding, twisting, circular, and sometimes overlapping paths. It is not hard to place each of the articles featured in this edition into Dr. Bartesaghi’s vision of what we do as re- searchers and how QRMH serves as an important platform for sharing our work with other scholars and with the world at large. Sylvie Lafrenaye and her co-authors illustrate the value of qualitative research with respect to healthcare in multiple ways.3 First, they stress the particular value that qualitative research proffers to our understanding of the ex- Editorial Warren Bareiss Department of Communication, University of South Carolina Upstate, Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA Correspondence: Warren Bareiss, Department of Communication, University of South Carolina Upstate, Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA. E-mail: BAREISS@uscupstate.edu Received for publication: 5 October 2021. Accepted for publication: 5 October 2021. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial 4.0 License (CC BY-NC 4.0). ©Copyright: the Author(s), 2021 Licensee PAGEPress, Italy Qualitative Research in Medicine & Healthcare 2021; 5:10168 doi:10.4081/qrmh.2021.10168 Qualitative Research in Medicine & Healthcare 2021; volume 5:10168 No n- co mm er cia l u se on ly perience of illness, experienced not just by patients, but also by their caregivers: Questions of meaning and of “why me?” inevitably arise. Medical science is interested in the “how?” of the disease (biological and genetic explanations), while parents wonder about the “why?”. Unfortu- nately, too often, the discourses on the “how” and the “why” do not overlap. Furthermore, the combination of content and rigorous methodology provided by Lafrenaye et al. are a model of how qualitative research can be done. Data collection is meticulous and clearly explained, but the content of the stories is what really hits hardest as parents try to make sense of and garner meaning from the imminent deaths of the children. Words alone cannot express the feelings and experiences of those parents. Narrative analysis, however, brings us closer to perceiving the range of ways that par- ents engage with, survive, and find meaning amidst on- going tragedy and inevitable loss. The authors close with practical advice for how healthcare practitioners could most sensitively and effectively communicate with care- givers of life-limited children.3 While Lafrenaye et al. discusses the benefit of mutual nar- rative construction between caregivers and practitioners, Linda Behar-Horenstein et al. approach narrative co-construc- tion in a very different context.4 Behar-Horesntein et al., con- struct a research success story through analysis of interview data collected over two years. Specifically, they report on a research center partnership featuring specialists from multiple fields of study, but all sharing the same goals pertaining to re- ducing cancer disparities and promoting cancer disparity re- search. Behar-Horenstein report remarkable success measured by an enormous number of publications and grant awards generated by the research center. As the authors point out, qualitative research is uniquely positioned to understand why the center functioned so well, albeit after some initial set- tling while providing a model for similar ventures elsewhere: The findings offer discernment into [participants’] feelings, beliefs, and actions relative to interdiscipli- nary, multi-university collaborative efforts. Building a contextualized, real-time understanding for how and why team scientists perceive collaboration ef- fectiveness and subsequent responses may augment the rate and pace of future Center productivity as we use these findings to reify and normalize team de- velopment processes. After all, we cannot improve that which we cannot assess or understand.4 “Narrative” takes a more ominous tone in Nynne Bar- chager’s article about discursive patterns between patients and healthcare providers are institutionally conditioned amidst Danish cardiac care.5 Combining textual analysis with ethnographic observation, Barchager illustrates how official texts “happen and are active in the interactions” be- tween patient and provider: In [official] documents, the patientas an institutional category is characterized by a lack of knowledge. The notion of educating the patient can be seen as a ruling relation as it originates beyond the local con- text of the rehabilitation program, but structures the actual interactions between healthcare professionals and patients. It organizes consciousness and actions as it orients healthcare professional….5 The “general narrative of progress” supported by medical research provides a dominant framework within which pa- tients who are unable to follow medical advice—due to lack of money, for example—are rhetorically held accountable for what can only seem to be (from the medical perspective) poor choices.5 In their analysis of women’s perceptions of risk associated with familial breast-ovarian cancer, Mariya Lorke et al. specifically focus on risk narratives, demonstrating that nar- rative construction and presentation is part of an ongoing process in which risk assessment is entangled with sometimes conflicting perceptions of identity, fate, and family.6 For the women interviewed in the research, genetic testing is more than an event that happens to a woman. Rather, it is a process that brings…attitudes, values, and ideas to the surface. This is the reason to suggest that pa- tients’ explanatory models of risk, their general atti- tude towards health and disease, their lived experience and biographical background should be taken into consideration…6 Health literacy plays a crucial role in negotiating stress as- sociated with genetic testing, Lorke et al. explain; being health literate, women are more able to balance perceptions of the health system as a means of healing and as a source of anxiety.6 Each of the articles in this issue develop qualities book- ended by Mariaelena Bartesaghi’s premier and closing edi- torials. In their different, yet overlapping ways, articles collected in this issue each embody (I use that word delib- erately) the self-reflexive, messy mindfulness that we expect from solid qualitative research. I am proud to share them with you as we carry Dr. Baresaghi’s work forward. References 1. Bartesaghi M. Qualitative research in medicine and healthcare: The (politics of) the illness experiment. Qual Res Med Health- care 2020;4:v-vi. 2. Bartesaghi M. Welcome to Qualitative Research in Medicine and Healthcare. Qual Res Med Healthcare 2017;1:i-ii. 3. Lafrenaye S, Dumas S, Gosselin E, et al. Parents living with a child afflicted by a life-limiting medical condition: Typology of their narrative identity. Qual Res Med Healthcare 2021;5:9174. 4. Behar-Horenstein LS, Richey JM, Smith UD. Assessing col- laboration among team scientists within a triadic research cen- ter partnership. Qual Res Med Healthcare 2021;5:9724. 5. Barchager N. The ruling relations of patient involvement in car- diac rehabilitation programs. Qual Res Med Healthcare 2021;5: 9489. 6. Lorke M, Harzheim L, Rhiem K, et al. The ticking time-bomb. Health literacy in the context of genetic risk prediction in fa- milial breast-ovarian cancer; A qualitative study. Qual Res Med Healthcare 2021;5:9647. [page 24] [Qualitative Research in Medicine & Healthcare 2021; 5:10168] Editorial No n- co mm er cia l u se on ly