Whose values are we teaching? Deconstructing responsibilities and duties of teachers of osteopathy

BackgroundAgainst the background of modern pluralistic societies the osteopathic profession has been facing essential changes during the last years. Traditional and progressive forces within the profession tend to drift apart. Teachers of osteopathy play an important mediating role in that controversial context. They act as a pivot in a power-play of interacting values and their claims. This commentary tries to sketch the structure of that situation.ObjectivesThe teaching person has to meet a set of challenges: (1) dialectic of idealism versus relativism; (2) pluralism of values; (3) relativity of values; (4) power being immanent to values and the educational situation as such.MethodsElements of Foucaultian “discourse-analysis” and Derridaian “deconstruction” have been used to dissect more or less implicit structures of power underpinned by values expressed by sets of normative claims.ResultsThe analysis tries to identify two groups of claims the teacher is responding to: (1) intrinsic claims originating from (1.a) the teacher her- or himself, (1.b) the students and their background, (1.c) the institutionalised profession and (1.d) the profession's tradition; as well as (2) extrinsic claims as there are (2.a) socio-cultural attitudes, (2.b) society's health system and (2.c) the system of state-approved medicine. Despite all intervening sets of values the patient can be identified as the goal of the teaching subject's responsibilities as it is the patient who enables the existence of the profession itself.DiscussionThere is no generally agreed strategy for teachers of osteopathy to help them manage the situation. An ongoing process of deconstructive self-reflective alertness that prevents the teaching person from excesses of either orthodox ideology or opportunistic relativism is recommended.