e-rhizome 2020, 2(1):19-31 | DOI: 10.5507/rh.2020.002

The Doctor-Comatose Patient Relationship and Decision-Making in the Intensive Care Unit

Marek Petrů
University of Ostrava
Reální 5, 701 03, Ostrava, Czech Republic
Marek.Petru@osu.cz

Cognitive science has not yet revealed the mystery of the mind, the principle and the origin of consciousness. We cannot determine with certainty whether a particular being has consciousness and is someone, or lacks it and is something. The doctor at the patient's bedside in the neurological intensive care unit has to, for example, make decisions even in this situation of uncertainty. In this study, using the example of clinical diagnostics and therapy of quantitative disorders of consciousness, the author examines the extent to which this ignorance represents a barrier preventing the neurologist from taking on the unambiguous decision about the therapy. He claims that the doctor in the intensive care unit is in a similar extreme situation, the solution of which requires analogous virtues that Tzvetan Todorov identified among prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.

Keywords: Consciousness, Disorders of Consciousness, Doctor-Patient Relationship, Virtue Ethics, Medical Ethics, Neuroethics

Accepted: October 13, 2020; Published: October 13, 2020  Show citation

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Petrů, M. (2020). The Doctor-Comatose Patient Relationship and Decision-Making in the Intensive Care Unit. e-rhizome, 2(1), 19-31. doi: 10.5507/rh.2020.002
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