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Published on: February 16, 2011
The noncompliant patient: a Kantian and Levinasian response
1Alden March Bioethics Institute, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Albany Medical College, 16 New Scotland Avenue, Albany, NY 12208, USA. BurcheP@mail.amc.edu
Abstract:
When a patient fails to follow the advice or prescription of a physician, she is termed to be "noncompliant" by the medical community. The medical community's response to and understanding of patient noncompliance fails to acknowledge noncompliance as either a relational failure between physician and patient or as a patient choice. I offer an analysis of Immanuel Kant and Emmanuel Levinas that refocuses the issue of noncompliance by examining the physician role, the doctor-patient relationship, and the nature of responsibility.
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