Surveys of patients (dialysis, general internal and oncology patients) show that in erisis situations (especially toward the end of life) decisions about their life are primarily left to physicians and relatives. Only few actually have drawn or wish to draw up a living will, and that the trust in physicians and relatives is much more important to them than any autonomous self-determination about their life and the type of their treatment. So the author points out that a renaissance of an ethics of care is needed, which places the well-being of the ill and dying at the centre of ethical considerations and which constantly attempts to clarify the proper and good goals at which medical treatment and medical care should aim. Such ethics of care is based on relations of trust between the physician and patient which is not possible to establish without confidence-building talks and acquisition and habitualisation of medical and care virtues such as sympathy, goodwill, recognition of limitations of their own abilities, honesty and others. Just plain specialised information about the diagnosis and prognosis, which leaves the ?autonomous enlightened? patients alone with their decision is not a sufficient basis for an ethics of care.

Enthalten in:
Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik; 2002/2 Kommentare, Studien, Berichte, Dokumentationen, Diskussionen, Rezensionen, Bibliographie (2002)

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Serie / Reihe: Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik

Personen: Eibach, Ulrich

Schlagwörter: Recht Ethik Medizin Befragung Autonomie Patient