Original scientific paper

Medical Secret and Dying

Dragutin Novaković ; Faculty of Medicine, Zagreb

Abstract

This paper deals with the hospital, medical, social and cultural context of dying, the one which occurs in medical institutions in the presence of nurses and physicians. Their experience of dying was followed-up by a 3-year empirical (survey) study with the main goal of testing some general paradigms on dying and the degree of their dying and dying in conditions in which it occurs or in which it should be occurring, studied were also the differences in opinions conditioned by sex, religion, work place (intensive and non-intensive care), education and provenance. Numerous and in part contradictory but statistically significant differences reveal some ways of thinking which are with dying nurses besides pity also feel fear and uneasiness. In intensive care units there is a distinct difference between hopeful and hopeless cases in the sense that the examinees would undertake medical intervention only in cases where there is at least some hope of recovery.
Changes which should be introduced in the practice of dying in hospitals are discussed vaguely and a confused way so that the suggestions have divergent directions. That is wey these changes should be the focus of public opinion wider than that of the hospital,but clearer definitions of what could be called »peaceful dying«. On such possible definition of »peaceful dying« is given at the end of this paper.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

155266

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/155266

Publication date:

30.6.1990.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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