On evoking clinical meaning

Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 31 (6):655 – 666 (2006)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

It was in the course of one particular clinical encounter that I came to realize the power of narrative, especially for expressing clinically presented ethical matters. In Husserlian terms, the mode of evidence proper to the unique and the singular is the very indirection that is the genius of story-telling. Moreover, the clinical consultant is unavoidably changed by his or her clinical involvement. The individuals whose situation is at issue have their own stories that need telling. Clinical ethics is in this sense a way of helping patients, families, and, yes, health providers to discover and give voice to those stories. In this way, clinical ethics is an evoking of meaning. Kierkegaard understood this well: Indirect communication is the language for the unique and the otherwise inexpressible.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Clinical ethics: Theory or practice?Jos V. M. Welie - 1998 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 19 (3):295-312.
A Window Into Richard M. Zaner’s Clinical Ethics.Osborne P. Wiggins & John Z. Sadler - 2004 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 26 (1):1-6.
Power and hope in the clinical encounter: A meditation on vulnerability.Richard M. Zaner - 2000 - Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 3 (3):263-273.
The clinical ethicist at the bedside.John Puma & David L. Schiedermayer - 1991 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 12 (2).
Afterword.Richard M. Zaner - 1999 - Human Studies 22 (1):99-116.
Clinical ethics as medical hermeneutics.David C. Thomasma - 1994 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 15 (2).
Responsibly Managing Uncertainties In Clinical Ethics.L. B. McCullough - 2012 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 37 (1):1-5.

Analytics

Added to PP
2009-01-28

Downloads
54 (#264,075)

6 months
2 (#668,348)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas S. Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Ian Hacking.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.Thomas Samuel Kuhn - 1962 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by Otto Neurath.
Genesis and development of a scientific fact.Ludwik Fleck - 1979 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edited by T. J. Trenn & R. K. Merton.
The wounded storyteller: body, illness, and ethics.Arthur W. Frank - 1995 - Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
The birth of bioethics.Albert R. Jonsen - 1998 - New York: Oxford University Press.

View all 35 references / Add more references