Human Dignity and the Medical Ethics in Slovakia

Abstract

Human dignity is a significant concept of the UNESCO Declarations on bioethics as well as medical ethics (including all medical professions). In Slovakia, the first more significant attempts in development of professional ethics occur in the second half of the 1990s. Traditionally, the sphere of biomedicine (professional ethics of doctors, nurses, etc.) is the most intensive development of professional ethics in Slovakia. However, the issues of medical ethics are very often reduced only to the ethical code. I would like to research idea of human dignity in relations among doctors, nurses and patients in Slovakia. Human dignity is a concept that we use to describe an aggregate of values and
qualities of someone or something that deserve esteem and respect. However, what is human dignity of doctors, nurses and patients? Is it a primary value of all human beings without differences in their social status or it depends on abilities of moral agents (including doctors, nurses and patients)? How is kept human dignity of doctors, nurses, health care workers and patients by ethical codes of medical professions in Slovakia at all?