Ethics and the Law in Medicine – in Research and Healthcare

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available online at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress

¹ All editors contributed equally to the editorship.

ISSN 1437-9783

ISBN 978-3-631-80116-1 (Print)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-81296-9 (E-Book)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-81297-6 (EPUB)

E-ISBN 978-3-631-81298-3 (MOBI)

DOI 10.3726/b16580

© Peter Lang GmbH

Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften

Berlin 2020

All rights reserved.

Peter Lang – Berlin · Bern · Bruxelles · New York · Oxford · Warszawa · Wien

All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any
utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without
the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to
prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions,
translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in
electronic retrieval systems.

This publication has been peer reviewed.

www.peterlang.com

About the book

This volume contains contributions from the international and interdisciplinary scientific conference “Ethics and the Law in Medicine – in Research and Healthcare”, which took place at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and at the Poznan University of Medical Sciences. The contributions to these proceedings encompass a broad spectrum of current medico-ethical questions that arise in particular disciplines. Compared to monographic works, interdisciplinary anthologies have the advantage of bringing together scientists from different disciplines into conversation on controversial issues from different scientific perspectives. The aim is an interdisciplinary discussion on challenging questions in medicine – conducted from different viewpoints. The volume’s contributions also highlight differences in the analysis and assessment of medico-ethical dilemmas due to socio-cultural differences.

Section 3. Clinical Ethics in Germany and Poland – Ethical Aspects

Tomasz Maksymiuk, Jacek Putz, and Jędrzej Skrzypczak

Responsibility for Health – a Brief Outline

Zusammenfassung

Die Autoren des vorliegenden Beitrags haben versucht, die Entwicklung der Verantwortung für die Gesundheit aus einer historischen Perspektive darzustellen, und zwar seit dem Beginn der Zivilisation bis zur Gegenwart. In dem Beitrag werden zugleich ausgewählte rechtliche Aspekte untersucht. Hierzu gehört sowohl die staatsrechtliche Verantwortung als auch die Verantwortung der medizinischen Fachleute, d. h. der Ärzte. Behandelt werden auch, in Umrissen, die Rechtsfolgen der Beeinträchtigung der ärztlichen fachlichen Verantwortung sowie der sog. Personalverantwortung. Kurz dargestellt werden zudem künftige Tendenzen für die weitere Entwicklung der zu behandelnden Problematik.

Streszczenie

Autorzy podjęli próbę ukazania ewolucji odpowiedzialności za zdrowie w perspektywie historycznej, od początków cywilizacji do czasów współczesnych. Równolegle artykuł poświęcony jest analizie wybranych aspektów prawnych tego zagadnienia tak z punktu widzenia odpowiedzialności samego państwa, jak i profesjonalistów medycznych, w praktyce lekarzy. Omówiono również, w zarysie, konsekwencje naruszenia odpowiedzialności zawodowej przez lekarzy, jak i kwestie tzw. odpowiedzialności pracowniczej. Pokrótce ukazano także zarysowujące się przyszłościowe tendencje w rozwoju omawianego zagadnienia.

The notion of responsibility may be defined as a moral or legal obligation of being responsible for one’s own or someone else’s deeds or of accepting responsibility to take care of someone or something.¹ In this case, responsibility for health can be considered in terms of such responsibility of individuals or social groups, together with State institutions or as the responsibility of entities obliged to care for the health of others. In the latter case it concerns, in particular, moral or legal liability of medical employees (specifically physicians) for the health of their patients. This article is an attempt at outlining the issue of health responsibility from both perspectives.

As far as the first perspective is concerned, considering the question of responsibility for health, it can be assumed that it rested, from the beginning of human existence, first and foremost on the individual. Naturally, it is impossible to ignore the sense of responsibility of the herd/ group/ tribe in specific ←111 | 112→areas of health, for example in relation to motherhood, although probably not in the current, full meaning of the term. There was solidarity on the battlefield, during hunting, or in the face of the general threat of a given group, nevertheless, for example, having sustained an injury or limb fracture, the contemporary pre-human remained alone with his suffering. The limited ability to communicate their feelings, resulting from the narrow range of language forms, initially boiling down mainly to simple warning or emotional signals, certainly did not make things easier.