Understanding the Fluid Nature of Personhood – the R ing T heory of P ersonhood

Familial determination, replete with its frequent usurping of patient autonomy, propagation of collusion, and circumnavigation of direct patient involvement in their own care deliberations, continues to impact clinical practice in many A sian nations. Suggestions that underpinning this practice, in C onfucian‐inspired societies, is the adherence of the populace to the familial centric ideas of personhood espoused by C onfucian ethics, provide a novel means of understanding and improving patient‐centred care at the end of life. Clinical experience in C onfucian‐inspired S ingapore, however, suggests that personhood is conceived in broader terms. This diverging view inspired a study of local conceptions of personhood and scrutiny of the influence of the family upon it. From the data gathered, a culturally appropriate, clinically relevant and ethically sensitive concept of personhood was proposed: the R ing T heory of P ersonhood ( R ing T heory) that better captures the nuances of local conceptions of personhood. The R ing T heory highlights the fact that, far from being solely dependent upon familial centric ideals, local conceptions of personhood are dynamic, context dependent, evolving ideas delineated by four dimensions. Using the R ing T heory, the nature of familial influences upon the four dimensions of personhood – the I nnate, I ndividual, R elational and S ocietal – are examined to reveal that, contrary to perceived knowledge, conceptions of personhood within C onfucian societies are not the prime reason for the continued presence of this decision‐making model but remain present within local thinking and practices as a sociocultural residue and primarily because of inertia in updating ideas.