Resumen

AGUIRRE RAYA, Dalila A. Foundations of the nurse-healthy/sick person relationship. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2004, vol.30, n.4. ISSN 0864-3466.

The nurse-sound or sick person relation has not been sufficiently analyzed. However, the doctor-patient relation has been dealth with more frequently. In fact, some health professionals consider that the doctor-patient relation and the nurse-sound or sick person relation is the same and they assert that there is no difference between them, but despite sharing the same object of study and common spaces for the exercise of each profession, their functions and contents are not equal. There exists a great difference between the medical and the nursing acting, so the therapeutic relations established by every type of professional with the sound or sick individuals should not be the same. A theoretical reflexion was made on the real foundations supporting the nurse-sound or sick person relation that make it different from the doctor-patient relation. The historical, social and religious base of both professions was exposed. Finally, it was considered that the topic was opened to analysis and debate and that it was not concluded or exhausted. It was stressed that trying to make equal the foundations of the doctor patient relation and the nurse-sound or sick person relation is an ethical mistake and that the debate on this topic would oblige to review those elements that from the religious and social point of view are the background of the doctor-patient relation and of the nurse-patient relation, because, undoubtedly, the medical hegemony and prepoderance have undermined the doctor-patient relations, which have played a role in the history of medicine, in the health care model and in the image the health professionals and society have of nursing performance.

Palabras clave : nurse-patient relation; nurse-sound person relation; nursing fucntions; ethics.