Sofia Morberg Jämterud

Abstract Serious illness conversations help patients who are at a high risk of mortality to discuss future care. The present empirical ethical study aims to explore health care professionals’ views on the ethical dimension of serious illness conversations. The first theme identified was providing and sharing prognoses in serious illness conversations, which was analyzed with the concepts of chronos, kairos and the hermeneutics of time.

1 Introduction Capturing a medical condition through a diagnosis can, in many respects, be seen as a medical advancement. For example, global classification systems like the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-5 are often considered valuable for medical research; they enable international comparative studies and create the conditions needed for evidence-based targeted prevention efforts and successful treatments. However, diagnoses are complex in multiple ways.