Person-centred Health Care: Balancing the Welfare of Clinicians and Patients

by Stephen Buetow

Overview

Person-centred health care is increasingly endorsed as a key element of high-quality care, yet, in practice, it often means patient-centred health care. This book scrutinizes the principle of primacy of patient welfare, which, although deeply embedded in health professionalism, is long overdue for critical analysis and debate. It appears incontestable because patients have greater immediate health needs than clinicians and the patient-clinician encounter is often recognized as a moral enterprise as well as a service contract. However, Buetow argues that the implication that clinician welfare is secondary can harm clinicians, patients and health system performance.

Revaluing participants in health care as moral equals, this book advocates an ethic of virtue to respect the clinician as a whole person whose self-care and care from patients can benefit both parties, because their moral interests intertwine and warrant equal consideration. It then considers how to move from values including moral equality in health care to practice for people in their particular situations. Developing a genuinely inclusive concept of person-centred care – accepting clinicians as moral equals – it also facilitates the coalescence of patient-centred care and evidence-based health care.

This reflective and provocative work develops a constructive alternative to the taken-for-granted principle of primacy of patient welfare. It is of interest to students and academics in the health and caring sciences, philosophy, ethics, medical humanities and health management.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367280710
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/28/2019
Series:	Routledge Advances in the Medical Humanities
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Stephen Buetow is Associate Professor of General Practice and Primary Health Care at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is also an Honorary Professor at Queen Margaret University in Edinburgh, Scotland, and Associate Editor of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice and the European Journal for Person Centered Healthcare.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

Part 1: The Need for Change

2. Clinician Care of the Patient

3. Patient Self-care

4. Clinician Self-care

5. Patient Care of the Clinician

Part 2: Moving Forward

6. From Patient-Centred to Person-Centred Health Care

7. Person-centred Health Care: Values and Virtues

8. Implementing Person-Centred Health Care