[Health care between art and science--experience and problems of professional jargon in nursing and health care].
As health care increasingly focuses its emphasis on the standards of science (objectivization, formulation, standardization and quantification of practical knowledge specific to this profession), the question, whether essential parts of professional experience are adequately included in this process or are rather an implicit part of it, has to be brought up. This article compares the structures of rational propositional knowledge (being the dominant approach within the medical conception of the world) with practical knowledge of health care on an epistemological level. It is further suggested to look for linguistic access to practical knowledge within health care not only via a rational technical terminology--which does not include essential parts of this knowledge--, but also via an aesthetically structured language. Literary texts as to their aesthetic use of language, on the other hand, offer a way to reflect and impart tacit knowledge as well as the opportunity to reflect ethically on beliefs, which are--mostly unconsciously--the driving force behind medical and nursing action.
Institut für Vergleichende Literaturwissenschaft, Universität Innsbruck. martin.sexl@uibk.ac.at
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D003695:Delivery of Health Care; D006801:Humans; D019359:Knowledge; D007802:Language; D009732:Nursing Care