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Phronesis and the Medical Community: Follow-on Impact and Engagement

An HSMC-led research team has been successful in securing funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for a follow-on project to the study on phronesis (practical wisdom) and the medical community.

University of Birmingham Aston Webb building

An HSMC-led research team has been successful in securing funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) for a follow-on project to the study on phronesis (practical wisdom) and the medical community.

The main aim of the follow-on study is to generate impact on patient care and community well-being by improving ethical decision making for the medical community in the UK. We will use our established links to work with medical education providers across the UK to help develop their work in the field of medical ethics education by building on our research findings. We will co-produce resources with medical school tutors that would help them achieve that impact. This new project is running for another 12 months until June 2019.

The original research sought to establish what it means to a medical community (130 consultants and GPs in our research) to make practically wise ethical decisions throughout their undergraduate and post-graduate professional careers. The study sought to understand how doctors make context-dependent, localised and ‘good’ decisions for patients and the wider community.

Please contact the Principal Investigator, Dr Mervyn Conroy, if you are interested in finding out more. A recent Viewpoint explains background and main findings of the project.