Moral reflection in the practice of care: from nice words to good actions.

Many steps must be taken to turn ‘nice words’ into (morally) good actions. One possible helpful step could be moral deliberation meetings, i.e. “a structured and methodical conversation in a group about a moral question in response to a concrete experience” (CEG). We will reflect on whether moral case deliberation can be of help in realising ‘nice words’. Because understanding the context of deliberative actions is important, we will first go back in time to discover the (re)introduction of ethics in healthcare: ‘how medi- cine saved the life of ethics’. Next we will describe ‘reflection at work’, i.c. health care and what kind of competencies health care professionals need to develop in order to be ‘reflective at work’. We will claim that moral case reflection as such must be of necessity complemented with moral reflection about care as such and about the organisation of care. Finally we will look at obstacles for reflec- tion and lessons learned: Getting from ‘nice words’ to good practices – is moral reflection really helpful