Ethic and religious elements in patient-doctor relationship

Abstract

The conception of Medicine as a service vocation to the human being, which implies the willingly permanent decision of “tending to help” the patient, whose well being should come first, knowing that he has placed his or his child’s life in the doctor’s hands, is the starting point for the analysis of the ethical-religious moment. This moment, without undermining the place of other moments that make part of any medical act, involves them all; moreover, ethical demands go till the moment in which the doctor defines his vocation. In regards to the patient, it is related to the correct use of the medical aid. The religious aspect of this element or “moment” is not related to any specific credo, but to the “formal dimension of the human being, the “actualization of the being attached to the man” according to Zubiri.