The Bioethically Informed Attorney and the Humanization of Medicine

Abstract

Criticisms of the impersonal ways in which some physicians relate to their patients, as well as calls for the infusion of more compassion, empathy, and humanity into the delivery of medical care, have abounded in recent months, as physician-watching gains popularity as a major American sport. Various culprits have been ‘indicted” for current shortcomings in the humanistic quality of many physician/patient relationships: the traditional paternalistic orientation of the medical profession, the explosion in the scientific knowledge that physicians are expected to master, the growing importance and effectiveness of medical technology in diagnosing and curing disease, economic pressures, and the ever-present, anxiety-stimulating shadow of medical malpractice. Whatever its specific etiology, the too-prevalent concern for “curing” at the expense of “caring” among modern medical practitioners has been widely lamented in both professional and lay forums.