Review article
WHAT KIND OF PHYSICIAN'S THERAPEUTIC PRACTICE RATIONALISATION DO WE NEED? OR, ON THE "BORN TO BE A PHYSICIAN"
Živka Staničić
; School of Medicine, Split
Abstract
Since the natural science, especially physics, has been established as a model of a mechanical rationality for all other sciences, physicians are trying to liken with the image of being scientists, in one way or another. Results of numerous research, on the other hand, show that the patient's picture of "a real" physician (which is sublimated in the colloquial, natural expression "born to be" a physician), do not correspond with the definition of a physician as a scientist.
Main reasons for the ever growing split between a patient’s and a physician’s image of "the real" physician can be found in societal, "structurally contingent" processes - the expansion of a rationalisation which has, as in epidemic raid, affected even the field of a physician’s activity. The rationalisation per se is not challenged, but the author indicates negative implications of a dogmatically narrowed application of the rationalisation (only as a pragmatic and theoretical) in the physician's practice. The discussion is, therefore, not being narrowed down to the most simple doubt - "for" or "against" the rationalisation, but aims at the issue of what kind of the rationalisation of a physician's practice is (at all) possible. The foundation of the answer to this key question could be found in the elaboration of a Habermas’s theory of a communicative action, a distinctive form of a Weber’s theory of rationalisation. Such theoretical framework offers a chance for pointing to inefficiency of all forms of rationality in the field of a physician's practice: "cognitive and instrumental", and "communicative" rationality. With the deduction of arguments, the author tries to prove that the concept of "born to be" a physician represents a good analytical strategy, and that with its assistance the dualistic thesis of rationalism could be overcome (established in the form of a binary antinomy): either values or the knowledge.
Keywords
“genuine conversation”; physician’s “authentic” care; physician’s practice; “born to be” a physician; self-definition of a physician; theory of communicative action; forms of rationalisation
Hrčak ID:
29020
URI
Publication date:
15.3.2004.
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