| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中央大學 === 哲學研究所 === 99 === Since nobody could avoid necessary healthcare needs, it is no doubt that physician-patient relationship is important to everyone. The quality of the physician-patient relationship is an important factor affecting the quality and success of medical of treatment. On the one hand, with the changes of the structure in society and development of the medical system, on the other hand, in modern society, medical disputes and scandals happening one after another, the relation between physician and patient grows into a very tense situation, and therefore the trust between them faces greater and greater challenges.
Contemporary discussions of the physician-patient relationship have been focused on patient’s autonomy and patient’s right, but there has been a steadily increasing emphasis on patient’s autonomy and patient’s right. But, it is doubtful whether it helps to restore trust or derails it further？ This essay is an analysis of the physician-patient relationship in terms of autonomy and trust.
In this essay, I begins with a review of the changes of the codes of medical ethics and models of the physician-patient relationship from the traditional paternalism to patient’s right and to the virtue theory. I argues that they are not sufficient for a good foundation to rebuild a good physician-patient relation.
Then I critically examine the different conceptions of autonomy, including the individualistic autonomy of principlism, Onora O’Neill’ s principled autonomy, the feminist relational autonomy and finally the Confucian ethical relational autonomy and their relationship to the problem of trust
I come to the conclusion that Confucian conception of ethical relational autonomy could enhance the shortage of the western conception and together could give a good foundation for physician-patient relationship. More precisely, the Confucian conception builds up a kind of intimate trust between the two parties as close relatives and lays the foundation for the internal trust of the relation. The accountability and responsibility of the physician could provide a mechanism to check the external trust of the two sides. With internal and external trust, we could hope to reconstruct the intimate trust of the two and promote to the best treatment and result for the patient.
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