The caring relationship in hospice care: An analysis based on the ethics of the caring conversation

Good nursing is more than exercising a specific set of skills. It involves the personal identity of the nurse. The aim of this article is to answer two questions: (1) what kind of person should the hospice nurse be? and (2) how should the hospice nurse engage in caring conversations? To answer these questions we analyse a nurse's story that is intended to be a profile of an exemplary hospice nurse. This story was constructed from an analysis of five semistructured interviews with hospice nurses, based on the `ethics of the caring conversation', which is inspired by the ethical perspective of Paul Ricoeur. The research questions concentrate on the norms of respect, responsibility and reciprocity, which are integral parts of the `ethics of the caring conversation'.