[Learning from mistakes]

Learning from mistakes. Moral aspects in nursing Medication errors are experiences which may serve to demonstrate variables of moral action in nursing. Qualitative research in nursing is asking philosophical questions by exploring the meaning of experiences. Still, philosophical answers cannot be expected from the use of research tools that have been developed by the social sciences. The usefulness of such research is found foremost in the thorough understanding of the problems relating to a certain topic and in making complex realities more transparent by analysing concrete data. Recent feminist philosophy emphasises thinking in the context of empathy and concrete relationships. Ethics, taking recourse to these basic elements will be contextual. In this paper I offer some results of discourse analysis as a qualitative research approach to the understanding of the experiences of nurses who have been involved with medication errors. The interpretation of narrative texts allows a close look at everyday nursing experiences. Herewith, a contribution is made to a contextual ethics that is of value to nursing. I show how different modalities of identification are likewise compatible with a teleological and a deontological approach to ethics. Even though an ethic of care may well dominate human relationships, such an ethic does not have to dispense with rules and policies.