El Cuidado como Hospitalidad del Tiempo, Ética narrativa entre el Kronos médico y el Kairós del paciente

Abstract

This article offers an ethical and philosophical reflection on the practice of care in medicine, drawing on the classical distinction between Kronos (chronological time) and Kairós (meaningful, opportune time). In a clinical environment increasingly governed by acceleration, standardisation, and institutional pressure, caring requires a reappropriation of time as a space of hospitality toward the other. Listening to the patient and accompanying their suffering are essential components of a truly human clinical practice. Narrative medicine, as developed by Charon, along with the philosophical contributions of Ricoeur, Frank, and Carel, allows us to conceive of care as a temporal, relational, and ethical gesture. Within this framework, patient dignity is not sustained abstractly, but through the concrete possibility of telling one’s story and being recognised as a subject.