[Medical power and the crisis in bonds of trust within contemporary medicine]

Salud Colect. 2016 Jan-Mar;12(1):9-21. doi: 10.18294/sc.2016.864.
[Article in Spanish]

Abstract

Based on the Brazilian context, this paper addresses medical power in terms of the current conflicts in the intersubjective relationships that doctors establish in their work, conflicts considered here as a product of a crisis of trust connected to recent historical transformations in the medical practice. Reading these conflicts as questions of an ethical and moral order, we use Hanna Arendt's theoretical formulations to further analyze this crisis of trust. In this way, utilizing the concepts of "crisis," "tradition," "power," "authority," and "natality," we search for new meanings regarding these conflicts, enabling new paths and solutions that avoid nostalgia for the past.

MeSH terms

  • Brazil
  • Humans
  • Physician-Patient Relations*
  • Physicians
  • Trust*