Ethics of feelings, capacity building, historical memory, and reconciliation: the fragility of health personnel in the Colombian armed conflict

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the way in which feelings and the recovery of collective memory make it possible to reduce the social and political fragility of the members of the Medical Mission, making new ways of participation feasible, through the development of deliberative capacities from a bioethical perspective. Methodology: exploratory study with qualitative approach, which considers the subjectivity and intersubjectivity of the participants. With heterogeneous sources of information: focus groups, semi-structured interviews and field primers, a framework of relevant factors was constituted, which allowed processing the information, through conceptual relationships and categorizations, for its subsequent triangulation. Results: the feelings with the greatest ethical impact in Mission Medical: uncertainty, insecurity at work, anxiety due to acts of violence, sadness, fear, fear, and impotence; produce emotional effects related to the principle of maleficence. Resilience has prevented them from carrying out collective memory exercises, due to denial and fear of remembering the most significant events, which has prevented them from accessing Restorative Justice mechanisms. The absence of capacities to face the situation compromises individual autonomy, occupational health and generates unresolved legal shortcomings. Conclusions: collective feelings in the public sphere of health personnel prevail over individual feelings based on experiences, which affect the capacity for deliberation, this implies promoting exercises of historical memory on the facts of the conflict, through the development of capacities that strengthen the legitimate defense of their autonomy and the development of a beneficial professional exercise, in the face of borderline situations of confrontation.