Heidegger’s two modes of thinking, calculative and meditative, were used as the thematic basis for this qualitative study of physicians from seven countries (Canada, China, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, & Thailand). Focus groups were conducted in each country with 69 physicians who cared for the elderly. Results suggest that physicians perceived ethical issues primarily through the lens of calculative thinking (76%) with emphasis on economic concerns. Meditative responses represented 24% of the statements and were mostly generated by Canadian physicians whose patients typically were not faced with economic barriers to treatment due to Canada’s universal health care system.
(Discourse on medicine: meditative and calculative approaches to ethics from an international perspective, David Cruise Malloy, Ronald Martin, Thomas Hadjistavropoulos, Peilai Liu, Elizabeth Fahey McCarthy, Ilhyeok Park, N Shalani, Masaaki Murakami and Suchat Paholpak)