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Trust in the Clinical Encounter: Implications for a Covenant Model

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Theological Analyses of the Clinical Encounter

Part of the book series: Theology and Medicine ((THAM,volume 3))

Abstract

It is axiomatic that trust is essential to social relationships, certainly to the clinical encounter that lies at the heart of medical care. Trust appears most precarious, and most necessary, at those times when our vulnerability is the greatest. In health care, the primary relationship of the caregiver and the one seeking care acts to shield us from a stark confrontation with our finitude, from the feelings of helplessness and dislocation that occur when illness casts us out of our everyday life and deposits us in a different place ([18], p. 31).1 The nature of illness and health care makes trust a basic ingredient in the clinical encounter between patients and clinicians, but changes in the cultural and social framework within which medical relationships exist, and of which they are a part, are affecting the way trust shapes the nature of that encounter.2

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Park Ridge Center for the Study of Health, Faith and Ethics, Illinois, Chicago, USA

    Ed Dubose

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  1. Ed Dubose
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA

    Gerald P. McKenny

  2. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, USA

    Jonathan R. Sande

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© 1994 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

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Dubose, E. (1994). Trust in the Clinical Encounter: Implications for a Covenant Model. In: McKenny, G.P., Sande, J.R. (eds) Theological Analyses of the Clinical Encounter. Theology and Medicine, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8386-2_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8386-2_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-481-4292-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-015-8386-2

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