Commentary: patient well-being and individual outcomes in the medical practice: impulses from philosophy | Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine | Full Text

Commentary: patient well-being and individual outcomes in the medical practice: impulses from philosophy | Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine | Full Text

Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine

Commentary: patient well-being and individual outcomes in the medical practice: impulses from philosophy

• Gernot Rüter and
• Thomas FröhlichEmail authorView ORCID ID profile

Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine201914:2

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13010-019-0071-x

©  The Author(s). 2019

• Received: 21 November 2018
• Accepted: 17 January 2019
• Published: 29 January 2019

Abstract

In an everyday private practice setting, regularly also existential topics will emerge from doctor-patient encounters. These are often questions of coping with life and lifestyle. To enable a thorough discussion of such topics, an implicit, and sometimes also explicit reference to a philosophical background is needed. Philosophical concepts to be used in this realm are discussed. An individual patient-doctor interaction is used as an example to demonstrate the doctor’s choice of hermeneutical and phenomenological philosophical concepts.

Keywords

• Existential issues
• Doctor-patient relationship
• Philosophical concepts