Attitudes of Polish Doctors towards Brain Death

Krzysztof Leśniewski, Beata Antoszewska and Bożena Baczewska ()
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Krzysztof Leśniewski: Department of Orthodox Theology, Faculty of Theology, The John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland
Beata Antoszewska: Department of Special Needs Pedagogy and Resocialisation, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Żołnierska 14, 10-561 Olsztyn, Poland
Bożena Baczewska: Department of Internal Medicine and Internal Medicine in Nursing, Faculty of Health Sciences, Medical University of Lublin, Chodźki 7, 20-093 Lublin, Poland

IJERPH, 2022, vol. 19, issue 21, 1-13

Abstract: Brain death has been one of the most controversial issues in the medical and bioethical debate globally for more than fifty years. There is no unanimous acceptance of the understanding of brain death, and a single set of neurological criteria for the determination of human death that is accepted worldwide has yet to be established. Physicians from different specialisations understand brain death differently. Therefore, research is needed to understand and typologically classify their points of views as regards brain death. In Poland, this research is particularly important, as the views of anaesthesiologists, neurologists and transplantologists, who fully accept and support brain death as being synonymous with biological human death, have dominated the scholarly debate on this issue. This study presents the opinions of Polish physicians with various medical specialisations in relation to brain death. Free-form interviews with 28 doctors were conducted. Participants expressed their personal views on brain death, while exhibiting at the same time various emotions. We discuss our findings in relation to the existing framework of knowledge and debate concerning brain death and the Polish legal regulation in force when the interviews were carried out. Although participants had different beliefs with regard to brain death, the research team managed to classify their statements and opinions into five attitudes, taking into account what for them were the most important, namely: the escapist–protective attitude, the scientistic–medical attitude, the accepting–critical attitude, the ignorant–agnostic attitude, and the ambiguous attitude.

Keywords: death; brain death; neurological criteria of death; attitudes towards brain death (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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