Abstract

GONZALEZ MENENDEZ, Ricardo. The contemporary phase of the physician-patient relationship. Rev Cubana Salud Pública [online]. 2004, vol.30, n.2, pp. 0-0. ISSN 1561-3127.

This paper assesses the “emerging” significant obstacles in the physician-patient relationship in countries subjected to neoliberalism, where the lack of political willingness to take on state responsibilities for the people’s health allows the proliferation of Managed Care- and Health Maintenance Organizations-type privatizing companies, with the subsequent progressive economic exploitation of the physician, the reduction of his/her professional status and the strict “regulated” restriction of diagnostic and therapeutic resources to be indicated to the patient. The frustrations of both the physician and the user thus determine an inter-personal context that together with the disastrous interference of yellow press into the medical context, the emergence of “lawsuit-seeking” lawyers, the resulting increase of claims on medical malpractice and the cost of insurance against this frequent situation progressively lead to a marred type of professional relation that tends to be called physician-potential plaintiff relationship, in which medical vocation and its more genuine expressions such as compassion and involvement are increasingly mutilated. The reaction of bioethists working in such contexts regarding the identification, description, assessment and dissemination of macro and microparadigms as areas of conflict that affect adequate decision-making presently define what is suggested to be called as paradigmatic phase of the physician-patient relationship. The paper describes the most frequent macro and microparadigms and presents some aspects to be taken into account in the medical formation

Keywords : physician-patient relationship; contemporary phase; paradigms.