The fundamental role of storytelling and practical wisdom in facilitating the ethics education of junior doctors.

Alexis Paton,Ben Kotzee

doi:10.1177/1363459319889102

Alexis Paton, Ben Kotzee

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1177/1363459319889102

Copy DOI

Abstract

Practical wisdom is a key concept in the field of virtue ethics, and it has played a significant role in the thinking of those who make use of virtue when theorising medical practice and ethics. In this article, we examine how storytelling and practical wisdom play integral roles in the medical ethics education of junior doctors. Using a qualitative approach, we conducted 46 interviews with a cohort of junior doctors to explore the role doctors feel phronesis has in their medical ethics practice and how they acquire practical wisdom through storytelling as an essential part of their medical ethics education. Through thematic analysis of the interviews, we discuss the key role storytelling about moral exemplars and role models plays in developing medical ethics education, and how telling stories about role models is considered to be one of the most useful ways to learn medical ethics. We finish by developing an argument for why practical wisdom should be an important part of medical ethics training, focusing on the important role that phronesis narratives should have in teaching medical ethics.

Highlights

Phronesis – or practical wisdom – is a key concept in the field of virtue ethics (Russell, 2009), and it has played a significant role in the thinking of those who make use of virtue when theorising medical practice and ethics
While the importance of the virtue of phronesis is a well-established feature of the literature in medical ethics (Kotzee et al, 2016), little is known about the extent to which phronesis is present in medical practice, and even less work has been done to understand how doctors acquire the virtue of phronesis
We highlight how phronesis is considered an important part of best practice, and how storytelling played an integral role in the development of phronesis during the medical training of a cohort of junior doctors

Summary

Introduction

Phronesis – or practical wisdom – is a key concept in the field of virtue ethics (Russell, 2009), and it has played a significant role in the thinking of those who make use of virtue when theorising medical practice and ethics. A large body of literature has recognised the importance of moral virtues like care, honesty and courage to medical practice and argued that the ethical doctor embodies a practical moral know-how, something that is necessary if good moral motivations (dispositions or virtues) are to produce or result in good clinical practices. This practical moral know-how is often referred to or represented as ‘professionalism’, ‘professional judgement’ or ‘clinical judgement’. We argue that is storytelling one of the primary ways that phronesis is developed, but it is the primary way that the development of phronesis can be examined empirically

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion