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Updated: Jul 14, 2026

Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care
14:32

Using Visual and Narrative Methods to Achieve Fair Process in Clinical Care

Published on: February 16, 2011

Hard stories in the workplace

Shelley Cohen Konrad1

  • 1University of New England, College of Health Professions, School of Social Work, 716 Stevens Avenue, Portland, ME 04103, USA. scohenkonrad@une.edu

Work (Reading, Mass.)
|May 25, 2007
PubMed

Relationships between family caregivers and professional health care providers typically begin during an intensely painful and stressful time. This article examines the literature on professional attitude and response to suffering with particular emphasis on how exposure to hard stories affects the development and quality of alliances with family caregivers. First person accounts from a qualitative, phenomenological study conducted with mothers of children with acquired physical disabilities are used to illustrate the perspectives of caregivers and the qualities they identify as contributing to competent, meaningful, and mutual relationships that allow for bearing witness to hard stories.

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