Abstract

KOTTOW, Miguel. NARRATIVE BIOETHICS OR FICTIONAL NARRATIVE OF BIOETHICAL ISSUES?. rev.latinoam.bioet. [online]. 2016, vol.16, n.2, pp.58-69. ISSN 1657-4702.  https://doi.org/10.18359/rlbi.1763.

The beginnings of bioethics faced the conflict between scientifically orientated biomedicine based on evidence, and the bioethical concern with personal values in informed consent, to sustain an interpersonal relationship in clinical encounters. Therapeutic medicine and biomedical research contribute to the free participation of patients and probands, which is expressed in the narrative that highlights the existential values of each person and the social context where they live. The medical humanities have been called upon to assist the healthcare professions to engage in narrative communication, by developing medical and bioethical narratives. Its influence to raise the narrative elements in biomedical communication has been inadequate and declining influence; their ancillary tasks to develop a bioethical narrative have been unable to revive bioethics steeped in academicism and social irrelevance, to the point where the discipline is seen to be in a crisis of validation. This article explores non-academic literary sources that treat with competence and amenity the issues that bioethics has been unable to solve. Two recently published novels are discussed: I. McKewan's The children act, and M. de Kerangal's Spanish version of Réparer les vivants, both books presenting a little-explored way of treating bioethical issues in a fictional form.

Keywords : Medical humanities; narrative medicine; narrative Bioethics; fictional narrative of bioethical issues.

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