Abstract

In consensus building process in medicine, it is said that it is crucial for its participants to understand why each stakeholder, patient, his/her family, physician, nurse, etc., in decision-making has his/her own opinion. In order to understand this condition more deeply, I develop the notion of “reason of opinion” to characterize the process as “prospective consensus building.” This prospective consensus building should satisfy the requirements of having “history of reason” and “list of risks.” The former requirement, history of reason, can be characterized by making clear when one started to form the reason of an opinion, how one formed the reason, what kind of relationship is supposed to be between the present opinion and its reason, and what kind of result is expected to come out after a decision making. The latter requirement, the list of risks, should display what kind of outcomes are supposed to come out in each alternative of the decision making. Prospective consensus building makes it possible, firstly, for the stakeholders to understand the patient’s needs more deeply. For the patient, secondly, the each stakeholder would be able to become aware of his/her own sense of value and to confirm what he/she expects from the result of his/her decision-making. For all the stakeholders, thirdly, it would make it possible to decrease the amount of risks of misunderstanding and to share their expectations for their well-being. Finally, the stakeholders can reach a satisfactory consensus and find a way to the better solution.