The Ethical Implication In The Development Of The Medical Models

Human being has created one miracle after another in the field of biomedicine, which has caused the emergence of new drug - resistant bacterial strains and made human sanctity and dignity subjected to unprecedented profanation. So people began to examine closely the field of medicine, which has long been called "the unaffected zone of ethics", and began an ethical critique of modern medicine. However, such a critique, being confined to the criticism of the concrete approaches and techniques of medical science, rarely touches the internal aspects of it, turns out to be in vain and can't reach its due purposes.The author thinks that, in efforts to evaluate modern medicine thoroughly and to find a way out for its development, in line with the current views of culture, values, ethics, diseases and health, the most penetrating, straightforward, and powerful exploration is the raising of the concept of medical model and the establishing of new medical models based on the study of previous medical models. In 1977, Engel put forward the idea of bio - psycho - social medical model, which accepted world - wide recognition and was put into practice by people around the world conscientiously. The world Health Organization (WHO) demands that the transference to bio - psycho - social medical model (BPSMM) be fulfilled before 2050 in developing countries.Nevertheless, in achieving this, many theoretical problems remain to be solved. Viewing that some scholars still take a sceptical attitude towards the concept of medical model, the author argues that medical model is a historical category. It is the generalization of the characteris-tics, natures, categories, and principles of life, death, diseases, and health by people during various historical times, against different cultural background, and based on the general level of philosophical thoughts, ethical views, together with people's knowledge of science and technology. It manifests the objects, contents, ways and means, and scope of the medical research and the criteria of scientific evaluation. And it develops and consummates as people's cognition of life, death, diseases, and health develops. Based on this definition of medical model, this thesis investigates the evolution of human medical model, and holds that the development of it is closely related to the economic situation, health care system, scientific and technological development, religious background, philosophical thoughts, and ethical views of the time. It evolved, in successive order, from Spiritualist medical model to nature - philosophical model, mechanistic model, bio - medical model, and now, to BPSMM.Starting from this definition, the author points out that every evolution of medical model makes human being get a new recognition of the issues with which medical ethics is concerned, such as human life and its value, health and diseases, medical morality, doctor - patient relationship , etc, which makes it possible for us to evaluate it in terms of medical morality. After analyzing the premises for changing this possibility into reality, the author asserts that human medical model can be well e-valuated in the socialist ethical value system.Hence, based on people's cognition and practical experience of life and its value, health and diseases, medical morality, and doctor - patient relationship, this thesis makes an ethical evaluation of various medical models, and thinks that the medical models existed in history are rich in ethical implication, but inevitably bear brands of the times, and all with great ethical defects. In the period of spiritualist medical model, whenhuman being as moral subject was in the period of awakening, ethical solicitude was obtained outside human being, but from "Heaven". In the period of nature - philosophical medical model, medical science was blended with philosophy, with ethics part of it, and views of medicine, containing medical morality, were rich in ethical meaning. In the periods of mechanistic medical model and biomedical model, human itself was materia...