Respect for patients' dignity in primary health care: a critical appraisal.
OBJECTIVE
To address the challenges of modern health care that patients call "inhumane medicine" by investigating the concept of dignity. That is, to answer the question: what does it mean to respect patients' dignity, and can focusing attention on dignity address the lack of trust in and respect for GPs?


METHODS
To scrutinise the concept of dignity as a basic term in health care by analysing its limitations.


CONCLUSIONS
Respecting patients' dignity, and meeting them as whole persons and not as the aggregation of organs, functions and processes, is crucial in modern health care. However, even a health care focusing on dignity can become paternalistic and undignified. Hence, dignity appears to be a concept that addresses a basic challenge in modern health care, but which can be dangerous if its limitations are not respected.
Center for Medical Ethics, University of Oslo, Norway. b.m.hofmann@medetikk.uio.no
Bjørn
B
Hofmann
D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006302:Health Services Research; D006694:Holistic Health; D006808:Humanism; D006801:Humans; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D009664:Norway; D010332:Paternal Behavior; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010821:Physicians, Family / Q000523:psychology*; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000592:standards*