Cases—be they real or fictional—are commonplace both in the medical ethics literature and in the public media. Cases take on a variety of forms: from streamlined to book length narratives. They also serve a variety of different purposes, from illustration, to decision making, and from debunking to heuristics. Drawing on the rhetorical analysis of « exemplum », I shall describe what cases are, and what their role is in the practice of clinical ethics. I identify two basic ways in which (...) cases can be brought to bear on ethical thinking and practice: a « tamed » and a « wild » way, and show how « wild cases » can serve a useful heuristic function despite their appeal to emotions and their unusual and striking character. In conclusion, I will argue that cases, both in their wild and their tamed form, are not only useful pedagogical tools, but can serve as a legitimate empirical basis for medical ethics. (shrink)

This study looks at the way in which students give meaning to the examples that are presented to them during educational presentations. Our research objectives are (1) to identify the properties of examples, (2) to observe their impacts for students and (3) to establish connections between their properties and their impacts. Start from 15 individual interviews with university students, we were able to identify twelve specific properties, six distinct ranges of impacts. More over, several connections can be woven between their (...) properties and their effects. To conclude, this study stresses the value and even the necessity, of taking into account the impact of language in pedagogical presentations and to continue research into this specific language practice in order to improve teaching practices. (shrink)