Maintaining the proper physician-patient relationship in health care is vital to the well-being of patients, especially when considering end of life decisions such as euthanasia. Because this topic has been in the forefront of media in recent years, there appears to be a need to understand how the relationship between physician and patient works in these practical situations, as well as understand what the most appropriate model of patient care is in regards to maintaining patient autonomy. However, before this can be done this paper will begin with a brief look at the overall permissibility of euthanasia, using the arguments of Dan Brock and Leon Kass.
Once the issue of permissibility is discussed, I continue by investigating three main models of patient care presented by Linda and Ezekiel Emanuel: informative, interpretive, and deliberative. Each of these models presents a different view of patient autonomy that changes how the physician and patient interact. By discussing the philosophical requirements of autonomy presented by philosophers such as Harry Frankfurt, Susan Wolf, and Andrea Westlund, I argue that the deliberative model of patient care provides the most sufficient view of autonomy while also protecting the physician-patient relationship and patient well-being.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ETSU/oai:dc.etsu.edu:honors-1331 |
| Date | 01 December 2015 |
| Creators | Wagner, Rachel N |
| Publisher | Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University |
| Source Sets | East Tennessee State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Undergraduate Honors Theses |
| Rights | Copyright by the authors., http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ |
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