Published in:
Open Access
01-05-2007 | Editorial
R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Even More Difficult to Teach than to Define
Authors:
Carla L. Spagnoletti, MD,MS, Robert M. Arnold, MD
Published in:
Journal of General Internal Medicine
|
Issue 5/2007
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Excerpt
“Respect” is a word like “empathy”, “love”, and “compassion”, that everyone agrees connotes a positive attribute; however, there are innumerable ideas about what respect means. Perhaps the reason it is so difficult to define is because it can mean different things to different people, depending on whether it is being used as a verb or as a noun, on the person’s cultural background, and the context in which it is being discussed. For instance, when a parent tells a teenager “to show some respect” the meaning is somewhat different than when philosophers talk about “respect for persons”. Aretha
1 put it very simply: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to ME!” …
