Unsung questions of medical ethics
Abstract
Official doctrines of medical ethics have become increasingly 'patient-centered': physicians are exhorted to respect patients' autonomy and to encourage patient participation in decision making; physicians in general medicine and primary care, especially, are urged to develop psychosocial competence, cross-cultural sensitivity and communications skills. These official values are undermined and contradicted, however, by the routines and assumptions that physicians use to organize their everyday work. These routines are taken so for granted as natural and required for the smooth, orderly practice of medicine that they escape evaluation for the implicit values they contain. Yet, they reinforce a particular view of appropriate roles and responsibilities for both physician and patient in the medical system, including the agenda and purpose of the medical interview; the level and amount of information to share with patients; and the power structure of the physician-patient relationship. These values, hidden in the routines of daily practice, are unsung questions of medical ethics. A fallacy in calls for greater patient participation in medical care is that this participation can flourish by simple addition, without reform of the ordinary structures of everyday practice. It is unlikely that these structures will change unless their normally invisible value commitments are drawn out of the obscurity of routine, and made subjects for public scrutiny and choice.Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.
Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Social Science & Medicine.
Volume (Year): 21 (1985)
Issue (Month): 3 (January)
Pages: 243-249
Contact details of provider:
Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description
Order Information:
Postal: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/supportfaq.cws_home/regional
Web: http://www.elsevier.com/orderme/journalorderform.cws_home/315/journalorderform1/orderooc/id=654&ref=654_01_ooc_1&version=01
Related research
Keywords:References
No references listed on IDEASYou can help add them by filling out this form.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:21:y:1985:i:3:p:243-249For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wendy Shamier).
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.