The ethical status of the body Flashcards
What is the importance of trust?
Trust underpins the doctor- patient relationship
Doctors are listened to because people trust them to speak up for others and not to promote their own interest
Every day doctors are trusted to make life and death decisions
What is professionalism?
Professionalism is much more than good manners and trust placed on a doctor resides in the ethical values that underlie their professionalism
Why should you examine/study the human body?
To understand normal physiology
To understand illness
To advance medical science
To enable diagnosis and effective medical treatment
Why do we need to look at the body objectively?
Scientific medicine depends on the ability to look at the body objectively
We need to understand the ‘normal’ to understand disease
Patients expect doctors to see their illness clearly and to offer rationally based treatments
What is empathy?
The capacity to know emotionally what another person is experiencing from within the frame of reference of that other person
What will examining the human body not tell us?
The lived experience of the illness
The meaning of illness to the individual
The nature of a persons suffering in illness
An individuals priorities in responding to illness
What should a good doctor do?
Listen
Draw on their skills and knowledge
Design a route in partnership with patients
Learn from every encounter
What is the the Bristol and Alder Hey retained organ controversy?
Began as a public inquiry into high mortality following complex cardiac surgery in children
Inquiry uncovered the children’s organs had been retained without consent post-mortem
Census found that over 50000 organs/ body parts/ still born children/ foetuses were held in NHS trust and medical schools without appropriate consent
What is the dualist approach to the human body?
Modern medicine traditionally adopted a dualist approach to the human body
The body can be thought as a biological machine which houses our conciseness- this consciousness makes us human and gives us personal identity
When someone dies thy leave their body (‘the machine’) and the person causes to exist
What is central to our humanity?
The inseparable connection between our emotions and our rational thinking
What is the problem with the dualist approach?
Dualist conception is unsatisfactory from a neurological perspective as it doesn’t think about how we are valued as a person
We should instead think about the ‘lived body’ or an ‘embodied life’ when we talk about human dignity
Why will computers never replace doctors?
They lack:
objectivity
emotional control
patient centeredness
compassion
responding effectively to death and the dead body
appreciation if the meaning of death and the significance of the dead body to the loved ones
