The Importance of Time in Ethical Decision Making

Departing from a contemporary novel about a boy who is going to die from leukaemia, this article shows how the dimension of time can be seen as a morally relevant category that bridges both ‘dramatic’ issues, which constitute the dominant focus of bioethical decision making, and ‘undramatic’ issues,...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nursing ethics
Main Author: Monteverde, Settimio 1966- (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2009
In: Nursing ethics
Year: 2009, Volume: 16, Issue: 5, Pages: 613-624
Further subjects:B bone marrow transplant
B Palliative Care
B Time
B Ethical decision making
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:Departing from a contemporary novel about a boy who is going to die from leukaemia, this article shows how the dimension of time can be seen as a morally relevant category that bridges both ‘dramatic’ issues, which constitute the dominant focus of bioethical decision making, and ‘undramatic’ issues, which characterize the lived experience of patients, relatives and health care workers. The moral task of comparing the various time dimensions of a given situation is explained as an act of ‘synchronizing’ the clocks. Ethical sensitivity and competence are presented as core skills that allow a continuity of care in situations where dramatic issues seem to be resolved, but undramatic ones are still not addressed. A nine-step model of shared decision making is proposed as an approach to identifying critical junctures within an illness trajectory and synchronizing the clocks of the involved actors.
ISSN:1477-0989
Contains:Enthalten in: Nursing ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/0969733009106653