Trust as the basis of the "doctor - patient" relationship in modern medicine: philosophical and anthropological interpretation

The principle of trust, being a direct basis of productive informal relationships between people, ceases to be the independent and sufficient foundation when social relations are formalized. Under institutionalization of social processes, they are normative principles of legal regulation that become the basis for formal relationships. The phenomenon of trust is considered as the basis of direct relationships between people and as mediated by the norms of legal (or contract) relationships. In the process of reproduction of formal (mediated) relationships, there arises lack of trust between people, and the culture of trust is replaced with the culture of distrust. The indicated problem is obvious in one of the most significant spheres of human life - medicine. The article provides philosophical and anthropological interpretation of the status and role of trust in relationship between a doctor and a patient in modern medicine, defines the ontological status of trust and forms of its existence in the current sociocultural situation. The study concludes that nowadays, under the conditions of the changing ethical paradigm in medicine, there takes place transformation of the phenomenon of trust in the «doctor - patient» relationship, where irrational trust is substituted for rational. The problem of trust is actualized in a situation when a person is waiting for medical care but receives a service within the framework of the current public health institute. Irrational trust, associated with the patient’s desire for safety, should be recognized as the basis of trust in a doctor in modern medicine. To retain irrational trust under the conditions of depersonalization in medicine, it is necessary to provide philosophical comprehension of the «shift» in the bases and meanings of the «doctor - patient» relationship.