Anthropological perspective on the human body: the human body as object and subject of health care

The study presents an anthropological reflection on the human body, which repeatedly during a lifetime becomes an object of healthcare. Our intention is to analyze the perception of a client’s (patient's) body, its status, changes and reactions under surgery and nursing care, performed by healthcare professionals. From an anthropological point of view, it makes sense to think also of a client’s evaluation. The client, through these performances, reflects on himself, on his body, on his feelings, and on the evaluation of health care interventions during hospitalization or outpatient treatment. The analysis of perception and experience of the client, his status, his reactions, including changes on the body or in the body, in connection with the performed medical procedures is enabled by comparative methodology, which give us the possibility to determine how these perspectives intersect and, vice versa, how they more or less diverge. A serious anthropological approach to the human body can help health workers to create a platform to achieve a more optimal concept of a bio-psycho-social approach to the client, a concept that in the so-called Western medicine is needed more. The text of the study thus acquires an applied, praxeological dimension. Its results can be used both in medical and teaching practice, in the context of the educational system for students of medical disciplines