Communication skills, expertise and ethics in healthcare education and practice

Abstract

This interview represents an opportunity to take stock of the positioning of our discipline – broadly characterised as discourse / rhetoric / communication studies – in the context of healthcare education and practice, while at the same time exploring intersections between communication/discourse/rhetoric and ethics, through the discussion of what is articulated as the framework of ‘communication ethics’. More specifically, the notions of relationality and responsibility are alluded to as being the core of communication ethics – an effort to extend the notion of ‘communication expertise’, as outlined in previous research, as a necessary point of departure from the communication skills view which currently dominates healthcare education and practice. The interview was first published as ‘Communication skills, expertise and ethics in healthcare education and practice’, as part of a Special Issue titled ‘Rhetoric and Health’, Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio (RIFL) 15 (1): 106–122, https://doi.org/10.4396/2021060INT2