Arthur W Frank visits BSMS

Art Frank

Narrative ethics revisited: From programme to practice

Art Frank has an international reputation as a medical sociologist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the renowned Hastings Center in the USA.

In 1995, he published At the Will of the Body: Reflections upon Illness, an exploration of his own experience of serious illness and recovery. He went on to write The Wounded Story Teller: Body, Illness and Ethics (1997) in which he explores stories of illness and suffering and develops a framework within which they can be understood. This book has become one of the most cited and anthologised works on illness experience and ethics.

In 2008, Professor Frank received the Abbyann Lynch Medal for Bioethics from the Royal Society of Canada for his most recent book, The Renewal of Generosity: Illness Medicine and How to Live.

Art Frank presented his current work on the use of narrative in ethics consultation, and the issues and considerations behind this. A film of his lecture will appear on the BSMS website shortly.