Survivorship and medical ethics
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12096667 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Debbie Barnard (0000-0003-3391-2084, Ethics and Public Policy Center, corresponding author), David Barnard |
| Year | 1985 |
| Volume | 9 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 115-131 |
| Publication date | 1985-04-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Death Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0748-1187 • E-ISSN: 1091-7683 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/07481188508252508 |
| OpenAlex | W2019164523 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 15 |
When psychological analyses of the encounter with death ignore consequences for moral agency, psychological coping can appear as an end in itself, rather than as a means for enhancing the morally conscientious care of patients. Functioning as a moral agent in medicine entails more than knowledge of ethical principles and appropriate use of moral reasoning. It also involves two more personal dimensions of professional life: the capacity for identification with others' plights, and a measure of self-concern. Yet medical professionals are “survivors,” in Robert Jay Lifton's sense of that term. Survivorship makes both identification with others and self-concern problematic in medicine. Survivorship compromises the capacity for identification through promoting avoidance of identification, overidentification, and pseudoidentification. Self-concern is thus not only a psychological matter–an effort to cope with the emotional impact of death–but a moral obligation: the effort to heal the wounds of survivorship helps restore the capacity for identification with others that is central to moral agency
Agency (philosophy · Coping (psychology · Identification (biology · Moral agency · Moral obligation · Obligation · Political science · Psychotherapist · Sense of agency · Sociology · Survivorship curve · Empathy and Medical Education · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology · Torture, Ethics, and Law
| Highly cited | No |
|---|