The ethics of narrative ethics: some teaching reflections

Abstract

Narrative is reemerging as a teaching tool. Narrative ethics is being seen as a rich endeavour both for clinical practice and academic teaching and research. Narrative helps put ethics into context. However, the use of narrative increasingly raises issues in teaching and research: for instance, how do we do justice to the people and narratives we utilise, and what does our practice reveal about our ethics? In this article examples are drawn from clinical practice, teaching and case notes to draw out some lessons to help further critical understanding.

Theatre as a public engagement tool for health-policy development

“…Theatre-based policy research poses similar ethical concerns to other forms of narrative research [46][47][48][49], as participants, i.e., key informants and audience members, "are asked to share more personal and identity laden data than in traditional, nomothetic research" [47]. As it is unlikely that either key informants or audience members will benefit from policy development research, there is a further imperative to mini- mize the potential for harm.…”

Critically ill patients and end-of-life decision-making: the senior medical resident experience

“…Data collection procedures: the interviews Narrative accounts are commonly used in qualitative research , in medical education (Dyrbye et al 2007), and particularly in ethics (Hall 2002;Jones 1999;Newell 1998;Nicholas and Gillett 1997;Raholm 2008;Tanner 1999;Tovey 1998). Three team members conducted 21 face-to-face in-depth interviews (Glaser and Strauss 1966;Kvale 1996) in Toronto (Canada), during a Canadian Critical Care Conference.…”

Bioethics, Disability, and the Good Life: Remembering Christopher Newell, 1964–2008

“…Narrative and story-telling was a leitmotif of how Christopher sought to bring experience back into the formal discourses and reasoning of bioethics (Newell 1998). Christopher always told stories about his own experience to illuminate a topic under discussion, prompt analysis, and engage an audience.…”