Ethical basis of the medical profession: an axiological enquiry

This article discusses the question concerning the application of an axiological approach in medicine being a basically ethical profession. This approach may be used in the dying process, which can be considered an important existential moment both for the doctor and the patient. Using both religious texts of ancient authors and modern philosophers, the study tried to reveal the deepest meaning and ambivalent relationship of humans to such processes as dying and death, by analyzing them from linguistical and axiological (valuable) standpoints and by focusing on “compassion” and eventfulness of a physical phenomenon but not the spiritual disappearance of man from this world. Consequently, highlighting that death and dying are eventful phenomena in human life, this approach can be applied to the doctor–patient relationship, especially in patients with incurable diseases, by carrying out a deep analysis of their life, so that patients would not feel that death is a punishment for their behavior on Earth. In conclusion, the author calls to overcome what French philosopher P.M. Foucault named the “clinical discourse,” which arose when medicine, especially after the Great French Revolution, looked at the patient as a future cadaver, not as a subject of cure of doctors, who when without illness shall become blue collar workers of a country.