Philosophical and Ethical Aspects of the Relationship Вetween a Physician and a Sick Person

Abstract

The relationship between a physician and a sick person is considered as original communicative field. This originality is mediated by the specificity of communicative space (“limited” environment in which the sick person is obligated to follow rules and norms, established in the medical unit); isolated environment for the patient (a feeling of biosocial deprivation); definite subjective-objective relations (the patient as an object for the actions of the physician as a subject); changes in feelings of the patient’s own body (body as an object of biotechnologies), corporealness (a feeling of dependence and helplessness) and image of the body (body as a biological material). Three aspects of the relationship between the physician and the sick person are reflected in the article, which require philosophical and ethical reflections: perception of the sick person by the physician as Another; perception of the sick person by physician as Strange; transformation of the selfness of the sick person in conditions of his sickness. Images of the sick person constructed in consciousness of the physician have conditional character. Nevertheless, it allows the physician to build out a definite model in his communication with the patient. In this case, the basic focus should be made on the otherness and selfness of the sick person. In the condition of the sickness, selfness of the sick person is definitely transformed. In particular, two situations are differentiated: identification of selfness with sick condition at the level of the reduced biological nature, on the one hand, and on the other hand, effort of the sick person to oppose his selfness to sickness in the frame of his own biosocial essence. We notice that constructing of the images of Another or Strange in the consciousness of the physician should not abolish prior significance of the principles of the medical ethics. Realization and adoption of the physician of the selfness of the sick person is considered as the most important component in the process of their communication. In this respect, from ethical point of view, the image of the sick person as an individual and unique personality should be appreciated in the first order.

Keywords

• philosophy
• ethics
• physician
• sick
• sickness
• another
• strange