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Foucault's "fearless speech" and the transformation and mentoring of medical students

Overview of attention for article published in Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, April 2008
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  • In the top 25% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (71st percentile)

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Title
Foucault's "fearless speech" and the transformation and mentoring of medical students
Published in
Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine, April 2008
DOI 10.1186/1747-5341-3-12
Pubmed ID
Authors

Thomas J Papadimos, Stuart J Murray

Abstract

In his six 1983 lectures published under the title, Fearless Speech (2001), Michel Foucault developed the theme of free speech and its relation to frankness, truth-telling, criticism, and duty. Derived from the ancient Greek word parrhesia, Foucault's analysis of free speech is relevant to the mentoring of medical students. This is especially true given the educational and social need to transform future physicians into able citizens who practice a fearless freedom of expression on behalf of their patients, the public, the medical profession, and themselves in the public and political arena. In this paper, we argue that Foucault's understanding of free speech, or parrhesia, should be read as an ethical response to the American Medical Association's recent educational effort, Initiative to Transform Medical Education (ITME): Recommendations for change in the system of medical education (2007). In this document, the American Medical Association identifies gaps in medical education, emphasizing the need to enhance health system safety and quality, to improve education in training institutions, and to address the inadequacy of physician preparedness in new content areas. These gaps, and their relationship to the ITME goal of promoting excellence in patient care by implementing reform in the US system of medical education, call for a serious consideration and use of Foucault's parrhesia in the way that medical students are trained and mentored.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 11 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 53 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Canada 2 4%
South Africa 1 2%
Brazil 1 2%
United Kingdom 1 2%
United States 1 2%
Unknown 47 89%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 13 25%
Professor > Associate Professor 7 13%
Other 6 11%
Student > Ph. D. Student 5 9%
Student > Doctoral Student 4 8%
Other 13 25%
Unknown 5 9%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 18 34%
Social Sciences 11 21%
Nursing and Health Professions 5 9%
Arts and Humanities 4 8%
Philosophy 3 6%
Other 3 6%
Unknown 9 17%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 19 April 2015.
All research outputs
#6,237,583
of 25,371,288 outputs
Outputs from Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine
#129
of 234 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#26,416
of 94,228 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine
#3
of 3 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,371,288 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 75th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 234 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.1. This one is in the 44th percentile – i.e., 44% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 94,228 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 3 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one.