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Physicians, Friendship, and Moral Strangers: An Examination of a Relationship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2009

Erich H. Loewy
Erich H. Loewy
Affiliation:
A professor of Medicine (Medical Ethics) at the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria and a professor of Humanities (Ethics) at the University of Illinois at Chicago
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Extract

It is often said that because physicians and other healthcare professionals frequently play a critical role in determining the fate of their patients, they ought if at all possible to be their patient's friend. The relationship of necessity is intimate: physicians have knowledge of their patients' histories and of their bodies which under other circumstances would be reserved to the most intimate of friends, and physicians and patients meet under more or less critical (or at least anxiety-producing) situations. In this paper, I briefly examine the role of the physician as “friend,” an Issue to be much more extensively explored In a book In preparation.

Type
Special Section: Healthcare Relationships: Ties that Bind
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Winter 1994 , pp. 52 - 59
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

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References

Notes

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