End of life
Yann Joly, Bartha Maria Knoppers in Routledge Handbook of Medical Law and Ethics, 2014
End-of-life care is closely related to the moral attitudes of the persons involved – both patient and caregiver – and their way of experiencing meaningfulness. In fact, all caring behaviour at the end of life is interwoven with normative and existential elements. As an important aspect of a free society, moral pluralism implies that citizens have the opportunity to orient their lives – including the last stages – on the basis of specific religious and philosophical convictions. Worldviews appeal to what we value and hope for in life, not only with our knowledge and technical expertise. Similarly, it is quite clear that end-of-life care is about more than the efficient organization of care procedures and scientific know-how. Dealing with illness and death affects people in their deepest and most intimate being; it touches the most profound part of their lives. Different worldviews – Christian, Jewish, Islamic, humanist, atheistic, etc. – provide a great deal of inspiration for dealing with these sorts of human experiences and the normative questions they raise. This multifaceted variety of worldviews attempts to formulate answers to fundamental questions and enriches pluralist societies.
Working with diversity
G. Hussein Rassool in Alcohol and Drug Misuse, 2017
In order to understand cultural competence, it is important to define what culture is. Culture has many definitions. One of the definitions is that culture is the shared beliefs, values and practices that are learned and transmitted throughout a society, and influence the way that a group of people live, make decisions and interact (Leininger 1991). Another definition of culture is “the integrated pattern of human behaviour that includes thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values and institutions of a racial, ethnic, religious or social group” (Cross et al. 1989). Another definition includes the spiritual component of culture. Culture should be regarded as “the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs” (UNESCO 2001). What is clear is that we need to understand culture so that we become aware of how others interpret their “world view” and respond to it. Understanding culture allows us to be more aware of cultural pluralism, differences and stereotypes. Culture is also related to health, health care provision and delivery. The “world view” of health and illness and their causes are determined by cultural factors. So how people seek and respond to health and social care and how we care for patients are fundamentally influenced by cultural factors.
The long conversation
Anthony Korner in Communicative Exchange, Psychotherapy and the Resonant Self, 2020
The notion of worldview is dynamic and perhaps elusive, not often referred to in English scientific literature. This may be in part because it is not possible to conceive of worldview in terms of measurement in a numerical sense. Jaspers referred to “weltanschaung” (“world outlook”) as “The total mental achievement” (Jaspers, 1963). He says, “under favourable circumstances an individual can become aware of his personal world in a systematic way… The methods for knowledge in this field are only acquired through training in the humanities”. This suggests that concepts such as person, personal worlds and self are relevant to the concept of worldview.
Sexological Worldview Development Explained by the Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity
Published in American Journal of Sexuality Education, 2022
In its fullest state, an integrated worldview is a worldview where a person experiences differences and the margins of culture as assets to their experience, providing them with insights into the experiences of others. Bennett described people in Integration as the culmination of intercultural sensitivity, where someone can move from one worldview to another with ease and enthusiasm. In this sample, only one respondent was able to articulate an integrated worldview as a primary place from which they functioned in engaging with others. This respondent reflected another aspect of Integration: the concept of feeling isolated as someone who goes between worldviews so often and easily. Bennett and Bennett (2004) described this experience as being unique to someone in the Integration stage of development; they called it “encapsulated marginality.” Encapsulated marginality occurs when a person who has a highly developed worldview that is adaptive to the worldviews of others feels a sense of isolation and loneliness in that experience; it is as though they are so adaptive that their worldview is unlike that of anyone else’s. Lastly, people in Integration experience a unique sense of self-awareness and engage in self-reflection very purposefully as part of their work to maintain this developmental perspective.
Against Externalism in Capacity Assessment—Why Apparently Harmful Treatment Refusals Should Not Be Decisive for Finding Patients Incompetent
Published in The American Journal of Bioethics, 2022
Brian D. Earp, Joanna Demaree-Cotton, Julian Savulescu
Pickering et al. (2022) argue that patients who refuse doctor-recommended treatments should in some cases be deemed incompetent to decide about their own medical care—in part because of their decision to refuse treatment—even if they would otherwise have been considered competent. This, then, would allow doctors to override the patients? will and to enact the treatment against their wishes. Such a proposal should be rejected. Among other problems, Pickering et al. fail to distinguish the “apparent” self-harmfulness of a decision (i.e., based on the judgment of an outside party) from the actual (net) self-harmfulness of a decision based on the patient?s own distinctive worldview and values. They also rely on a false equivalence between dissimilar approaches to decision-making to dismiss the dominant anti-paternalist paradigm. Pursuing their suggestion would thus foster morally objectionable paternalism in medicine. It could lead to the imposition of genuinely unwanted treatments on non-consenting patients, and to the wrongful infringement of patients? bodily integrity.
The active engagement model of applied ethics as a structure for ethical reflection in the context of course-based service learning
Published in Physiotherapy Theory and Practice, 2018
Kathryn C Nesbit, Gail M Jensen, Clare Delany
In Step 2, the questions prompted students to reflect on how they might be perceived by their patients and others. This seemed to encourage an understanding of how they (as health professionals) were perceived and valued by the patient. More broadly, the questions opened up the idea of different worldviews and their potential influence on therapeutic relationships. The students reflected on how the complexities of the culture and the vastly different worldview influence relationships. We are valued as medical professionals who specialize in movement disorders. We may be taken more seriously because we have Western education. (Narrative Writing, Step 2 Q 6, Student 6)You know you need to gain that trust…. But I think it’s kind of a different kind of trust because… they don’t know anything about physical therapists here…Like in the United States it’s different because people like oh my neighbor went to physical therapy – they kind of had an idea. They [Malawians] have a blank space on what is PT so I think…you do really need to gain their trust. (Interview, Step 2, Student 4)The culture of Malawi has been molded by a mixture of native African culture and colonization. (Narrative Writing, Step 2 Q5, Student 3)
Related Knowledge Centers
- Cognition
- Evolution
- Mental Model
- Population Genetics
- Knowledge
- Point of View
- Anschauung
- Social Constructionism
- Unconscious Mind
- Linguistic Relativity