Skip to main content
Journal cover image

What does any of this have to do with being a physician? Kierkegaardian irony and the practice of medicine

Publication ,  Journal Article
Curlin, FA
Published in: Christian Bioethics
April 1, 2016

Growing physician discontent may express an anxiety that the medicine we practice today, at its best, is not medicine at all. If so, such discontent may be a dysfunctional form of irony-not irony as the term is generally used today, but irony as the concept is used by Kierkegaard and recovered by the philosopher Jonathan Lear. In this essay, I describe Lear's account of Kierkegaardian irony and the forms irony may take in the practice of medicine. I then describe several contemporary dynamics that seem to suppress irony by suggesting that there is nothing more to medicine than its current social practices. I close by proposing that a Christian imagination provides physicians resources to recognize and make sense of irony and to respond to it (and their discontent) not by detaching altogether from the practice of medicine, but by faithfully renewing their efforts to become the physicians they are called to be but are not quite sure how to become.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Christian Bioethics

DOI

EISSN

1744-4195

ISSN

1380-3603

Publication Date

April 1, 2016

Volume

22

Issue

1

Start / End Page

62 / 79

Related Subject Headings

  • 5004 Religious studies
  • 5003 Philosophy
  • 5001 Applied ethics
  • 2203 Philosophy
 

Citation

APA
Chicago
ICMJE
MLA
NLM
Curlin, F. A. (2016). What does any of this have to do with being a physician? Kierkegaardian irony and the practice of medicine. Christian Bioethics, 22(1), 62–79. https://doi.org/10.1093/cb/cbv029
Curlin, F. A. “What does any of this have to do with being a physician? Kierkegaardian irony and the practice of medicine.” Christian Bioethics 22, no. 1 (April 1, 2016): 62–79. https://doi.org/10.1093/cb/cbv029.
Curlin, F. A. “What does any of this have to do with being a physician? Kierkegaardian irony and the practice of medicine.” Christian Bioethics, vol. 22, no. 1, Apr. 2016, pp. 62–79. Scopus, doi:10.1093/cb/cbv029.
Journal cover image

Published In

Christian Bioethics

DOI

EISSN

1744-4195

ISSN

1380-3603

Publication Date

April 1, 2016

Volume

22

Issue

1

Start / End Page

62 / 79

Related Subject Headings

  • 5004 Religious studies
  • 5003 Philosophy
  • 5001 Applied ethics
  • 2203 Philosophy