Literature and Ethical Medicine: Five Cases from Common Practice

This essay is composed of five stories written by practicing physicians about their patients. Each clinical story describes a challenging ethical condition-potential abuse of medical power, gravely ill and probably over-treated newborns, iatrogenic narcotic addiction, deceived dying people. Rather than singling out one ethical conflict to resolve or adjudicate, the authors attempt, through literary methods, to grasp the singular experiences of their patients and to act according to the deep structures of their patients' lives. Examining these five stories with simple literary tools-attention to narrative frames, time, plot, and desire-reveals the mechanisms through which acts of writing and reading contribute to clinical clarity and ethical actions.