Interdisciplinary Research Group:

Autonomy and Trust in Modern Medicine
Knowledge - Practice - Norm

Patients’ right to self-determination is rightly held in high esteem in liberal and individualized societies. Yet, in a highly complex world defined by scientific and technological rationalities, autonomous agency can only increase when individuals develop trust in persons and trust in systems.
Autonomy is acknowledged as a key concept in modern liberal societies. The same must be true of trust since patients’ and health care professionals’ vulnerability and insecurity grow with the options of modern medicine. The research project focuses on approaches that attempt to understand autonomy and trust in the medical context relationally and socially. We examine how patient self-determination on one hand and interpersonal trust as well as trust in social systems on the other depend on each other, how they are generated or undermined and how they are justified. We explore, in particular, the role of organisations and institutions - like the hospital - and collective actors - like the family or patients groups. Which role do they play regarding interpretation and realization of trust and autonomy in medicine? Seven mutually interdependent research projects from philosophy, medical law, theology, medical ethics and medicine address these questions on a theoretical and conceptual level:

• Research subproject PHILOSOPHY: Autonomy and Trust
  (Leader: Prof. Holmer Steinfath, Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Humanities)

• Research subproject LEGAL THEORY/MEDICAL LAW: Trust in the Law as Trust in the System. Drawing on the Example of Medicine and its Legal Regulation
  (Leader: Prof. Gunnar Duttge, Center for Medical Law, Faculty of Law)

• Research subproject THEOLOGY: Autonomy and Trust as Ambivalent Reference-Points for Christian-based Agents in Hospital
  (Leader: Prof. Reiner Anselm, Faculty of Theology)

• Research subproject FAMILY LAW/MEDICAL LAW: Autonomy Through Family? - The Role of the Family in End-of-Life Decisions and Reproductive Medicine
  (Leader: Prof. Volker Lipp, Center for Medical Law, Faculty of Law)
  
  
• Research subproject MEDICAL ETHICS: Reproductive Autonomy as Family Autonomy? On Family and Trust in Reproductive Medicine
  (Leader: Prof. Claudia Wiesemann, Dept. of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, University Medical Center Goettingen)
  
  
• Research subproject MEDICAL ETHICS/SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY: Autonomy and Trust with Regard to Patient Associations
  (Leader: Prof. Silke Schicktanz, Dept. of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine, University Medical Center Goettingen)
  
  
• Research subproject MEDICINE: Autonomy and Trust within the Clinical and Practical Context of End-of-Life Treatment Decisions
  (Leader: Prof. Friedemann Nauck & PD Dr. Bernd Alt-Epping, Department of Palliative Medicine, University Medical Center Goettingen)