The Clinical Encounter

1. Morality in the Patient-Physician Relationship

   1. The Physician-Patient Relationship in a Secular, Pluralist Society

      • H. Tristram Engelhardt Jr.

      Pages 253-266

   2. The Therapeutic Relationship: Is Moral Conduct a Necessary Condition?

      • Albert R. Jonsen

      Pages 267-287

   3. A Theological Context for the Relationship Between Patient and Physician

      • David H. Smith

      Pages 289-301

2. Back Matter

   Pages 303-309

   PDF

The encounter between patient and physician may be characterized as the focus of medicine. As such, the patient-physician relationship, or more accurately the conduct of patients and physicians, has been the subject of considerable comment, inquiry, and debate throughout the centuries. The issues and concerns discussed, apart from those more specifically related to medical theory and therapy, range from matters of etiquette to profound questions of philosophical and moral interest. This discourse is impressive with respect both to its duration and content. Contemporary scholars and laypeople have made their contribution to these long-standing discussions. In addition, they have actively addressed those distinctively modern issues that have arisen as a result of increased medical knowledge, improved technology, and changing cultural and moral expectation. The concept of the patient-physician rela­ tionship that supposedly provides a framework for the conduct of patients and physicians seemingly has taken on a life of its own, inviolable, and subject to norms particular to it. The essays in this volume elucidate the nature of the patient-physician relationship, its character, and moral norms appropriate to it. The purpose of the collection is to enhance our understanding of that context, which many consider to be the focus of the entire medical enterprise. The con­ tributors have not engaged in apologetics, polemics, homiletics, or em­ piricism.

• Medical Ethics
• ethics
• issue
• knowledge
• medicine
• morality
• therapy

• Center for Ethics, Medicine, and Public Issues, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, USA

  Earl E. Shelp

• Institute of Religion, Houston, USA

  Earl E. Shelp

Policies and ethics