On The Right Of The Right To Information And Knowledge In Patients With Terminal Illnesses

With the conversion of medical system,i.e.from traditional biomedicine to biology-psychology -sociology model,the traditional father medical ethics has been shaken since the 50s of the last century.The patient's right to know has gradually been respected as a basic right by the medical circle.The principle "informed consent" has become a fundamental principle of law.On the other hand,the medical circle finds that it's not enough to protect the incurable patients by keeping the right to know only.But when considering the special physical and mental conditions of some patients,it's dilemmatic to inform them of the truth that they are suffering incurable diseases(such as cancer,genic disease) Whether or not to respect the patient's right to know is a question.Besides of the right to know,the author believe this kind of patients enjoy the right not to know.It means the incurable disease sufferer has the alternative to be informed or uninformed of the state of illness.The doctors and nurses shouldn't disclose the information of the illness to the patient in order to protect the patient's physical and mental health,comfort of living and life.The dissertation emphasizes on the incurable patients' rights to know and not to know and the priority when they conflict.There're three parts. The first part discusses the definition,content,development,legal theory, characteristic,function and obligation of the right to know.The second part discusses the incurable patients the definition,content,development,legal theory,statistic theory,characteristic,function and obligation of the right not to know.The third part discusses the priority when the two rights conflict and some internal medical institutions' efforts.