Abstract

CERVERA SOTO, Santiago  and  VINES RUEDA, José Javier. Practicing medicine with the medical-social context of the year 2000. Rev. Esp. Salud Publica [online]. 1999, vol.73, n.1, pp.13-24. ISSN 2173-9110.

This study discusses the conviction that the qualitative change which is going to be taking place over the next few decades with regard to the practice of medicine as far as the four governing aspects which bear an impact on medical practice are concerned: pure applied science; health-care policies; the economy and ethics. Medical science’s know-how is going to be applied based on scientific evidence, the empirical scientific approach that has characterized medical practice over the past century being replaced. The health care policies from the organized society (Public Health Care System) are going to be changing its centralized models, handing over management authorities to the health-care professionals proper working at the public medical centers oriented toward health-care objectives. In turn, the health-care administration is going to be demanding a greater deal of strictness with regard to the honoring of health-care benefits based on scientific proof. The health-care economy of the Public Health-Care System is going to be requiring that the prescribing of medical procedures and the implementation of new technologies be dealt with based on results-based proven effectiveness related to health and, therefore, efficiency in management terms is going to be replaced by cost-effectiveness. Finally, the trend in individual medical ethics is going to continue evolving due to the many different individual and group ethics, which, in defense of the very nature (physis) of the medical practice is going to be requiring the development of informed consent, conscientious objection and a consensus being reached regarding new codes of professional conduct of a universal scope.

Keywords : Scientific evidence; Health policies; Health economics; Ethics.

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