Review article
Medicine in the era of decivilization
Norman Sartorius
orcid.org/0000-0001-8708-6289
Abstract
This paper discusses the current trends in the development of medicine. In the first part of the article several of the major societal trends affecting medicine are enumerated and discussed. These include the processes of decivilisation (the decrease of care and attention that a society gives to its feeble members), globalisation, commoditification (the tendency to consider health and health care as well as many other social concerns as commodities such as sugar or cotton), decentralisation of social services, the changes of the middle class, the technological revolution and the consequences of migration and population movements. The second part of the article deals with the changes of medicine and of medical ethics, with changing goals of health systems, with the obsolescence of important health care strategies and with changes of the systems of medical care. Burn-out of health care personnel and the impact of the imposition of novel value systems by globalization are also briefly discussed. The paper ends underlining the need for a re-examination of the health care strategies, involving all the stakeholders in the field of health – representatives of family and patient organizations, governmental sectors other than health (e.g. education and labour) the health industry and the many categories of health professionals – in order to bring these strategies in harmony with the development of society as a whole.
Keywords
development of medicine; globalisation; decivilisation, technological revolution; health case
Hrčak ID:
42377
URI
Publication date:
20.10.2009.
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