Michael Welker | Eva Winkler | John Witte, Jr. | Stephen Pickard (Eds.): The Impact of Health Care (Leseprobe)
Pluralism has become the defining characteristic of many modern societies. Not only a plurality of individual and social claims and activities gain impacts on societal life. A creative pluralism of institutions and their norms profoundly shape our moral commitments and character – notably the family, the market, the media, and systems of law, religion, politics, research, education, health care, and defense. In the theoretical, empirical, and historical contributions to this volume, specialists on medicine, medical ethics, psychology, theology and health care discuss the many challenges that major transformations in their areas of expertise pose to the communication and orientation in late modern pluralistic societies. Contributors come from Germany, the USA and Australia.
Pluralism has become the defining characteristic of many modern societies. Not only a plurality of individual and social claims and activities gain impacts on societal life. A creative pluralism of institutions and their norms profoundly shape our moral commitments and character – notably the family, the market, the media, and systems of law, religion, politics, research, education, health care, and defense.
In the theoretical, empirical, and historical contributions to this volume, specialists on medicine, medical ethics, psychology, theology and health care discuss the many challenges that major transformations in their areas of expertise pose to the communication and orientation in late modern pluralistic societies. Contributors come from Germany, the USA and Australia.
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Time for aNew Oath? <strong>The</strong> Role <strong>of</strong><br />
the Individual Physician’s Ethos and<br />
Institutional Ethics in the Face <strong>of</strong><br />
Economization <strong>of</strong> the <strong>Health</strong>-<strong>Care</strong><br />
System<br />
<strong>Eva</strong> C. <strong>Winkler</strong><br />
<strong>The</strong> topic <strong>of</strong> economization in the health-care system has been rampant for many<br />
years, but has been gaining momentum in Germany since 2018 inparticular,<br />
with anumber <strong>of</strong> wake-up calls. <strong>The</strong> Association <strong>of</strong> the Scientific Medical Societies<br />
in Germany (AWMF) published anaction paper against the undue influence<br />
<strong>of</strong> economic interests on medical decisions. 1 <strong>The</strong> popular magazine Der<br />
Stern published an urgent request against the economization <strong>of</strong>German hospitals<br />
that was signed by numerous medical associations, specialist societies, individual<br />
doctors, and well-known medical ethicists. 2 And in 2021, at the annual<br />
meeting <strong>of</strong> the German Medical Association, the delegates overwhelmingly supported<br />
the proposal against commercialization in the health-care system made<br />
by the board <strong>of</strong> directors <strong>of</strong> the German Medical Association (BÄK), saying, “<strong>The</strong><br />
medical pr<strong>of</strong>ession rejects performance, financial, resource, and behavioral requirements<br />
that affect responsible medical practice and are incompatible with<br />
medical ethics.” 3<br />
<strong>The</strong>se appeals speak tothe dilemma that many physicians face—on one<br />
hand, the mandate to provideastandard <strong>of</strong> care and contribute to the well-being<br />
<strong>of</strong> their patients, and on the other hand, the need to be held responsible for<br />
their own department, clinical practice, orhospital to be economically balanced<br />
or even togenerate revenues. <strong>The</strong> debate also shows that the term “economization”<br />
is used to mean everything from practices <strong>of</strong>increasing efficiency to aprimary<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>it orientation in health care.<br />
1<br />
2<br />
3<br />
AWMF, “Medizin und Ökonomie—Maßnahmen fu reine wissenschaftlich begru ndete,<br />
patientenzentrierte und ressourcenbewusste Versorgung.”<br />
“Der Ärzteappel—gegen die Diktatur der Ökonomie in unseren Krankenhäusern,” Der<br />
Stern, no. 37, Sep. 5, 2019.<br />
Deutsches Ärzteblatt, Nov. 2, 2021, “Ärztetag lehnt Kommerzialisierung ab,” https://<br />
www.aerzteblatt.de/nachrichten/128581/Aerztetag-lehnt-Kommerzialisierung-ab-aer<br />
ztliches-Handeln-muss-unbeeinflusst-bleiben.
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