Bearing Witness to the Ethics of Practice: Storying Physicians' Medical Mistake Narratives

Abstract

Medical mistakes are often referred to as the “hidden epidemic” of health because doctors, patients, and hospital administrators remain silent about mistakes. This study relies on in-depth interviews to explore how physicians story their medical mistake experiences. Narrative theory is used to understand how these physicians story the complexity of medical mistakes, highlighting how these physicians bear witness to medical mistakes by sharing and listening to medical mistake narratives. Moreover, this study showcases the implications of how practitioners and scholars bear witness to the oft-times emotional telling and retelling of health narratives.

Notes

¹Three different IRB certificates were required for this project: from my university, the VAMC, and a local university that does joint work with the VAMC.