Rethinking patient-health care provider relations
Sadan, Batami
Sadan, Batami
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Abstract
The conflict between the individual's needs and rights and society's capability and obligation to guarantee them is clearly manifest in the health arena. Decisions for allocating limited resources are made by health system officers and medical teams, while the patients' expectations are not based on economic considerations. This conflict is exacerbated by the prevailing gap in knowledge and information between patients and caregivers and by limitations of the patient's scope of choice. Ethical principles should provide the necessary guidelines of behavior in these states of conflict. Neither of two opposing philosophical approaches, collectivism and individualism is suitable to provide guidelines for dealing with the complex dynamics within these conflicts, while the systemic ethical approach to morality/ethics is particularly suitable to do so. It provides a framework for the pursuit of the Socratic ideal of the "good individual in a good society". We present the systemic approach and demonstrate its suitability for resolving an exemplary health care-related conflict. Key Words: Health care system, health care provider-patient relations, moral principles, patient's autonomy, systemic approach to morality.
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2001-09
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With permission of the license/copyright holder