Kontakt 2012, 14(1):7-13 | DOI: 10.32725/kont.2012.002

About patient dignityNursing - Review

Jana Wichsová

Fakultní nemocnice Motol, Praha

The concept of the human dignity is employed in ethical codes and it can also be found in the preamble to the bioethical convention. In spite of this, the delimitation of this concept is not uniform. For better understanding of problems of the human dignity, the article deals with different formulations of the term dignity. Persons are considered as carriers of the dignity, but the author explains this concept in terms of consideration of the philosopher Jan Sokol and founder of speech therapy V. E. Frankl. The treatise also deals with characteristics of persons according to catholic Charter of healthcare professionals. Differences in understanding human being through the mediation of oncologic personalism or empirical functionalism are described. The text finally considers the secular delimitation of the human dignity in accordance with L. Nordenfelt with differentiation of four types from each other: the dignity of merits, the dignity of the moral force, the dignity of the personal identity and Menschenwürde, which characterize inalienable respect to each human individual independently on his/her physical or mental condition. In spite of the fact that treating the patient and clients on the part of healthcare and social professionals is not retrievable, each professional should know it in practice and employ different delimitations of the human dignity. The author considers the concept of Menschenwürde as a basis, where the human dignity is a universal value given by the very principle of humanism.

Keywords: dignity; patient; person; Menschenwürde; ethics

Received: September 23, 2011; Accepted: January 26, 2012; Published: March 16, 2012  Show citation