Petr Skrabanek
The End of Humanitarian Medicine Publication date : October 1, 1995
Medicine is at a crossroads. Traditionally, practitioners helped patients who came to them looking for support, for something to alleviate their suffering. However, the progress which has been accomplished in the last few decades has changed everything. Doctors now claim to be fighting death itself, they believe medicine to have almost limitless powers, and they try to prevent illness by changing behaviour. From this point onwards, our entire existence becomes overmedicalized. In the name of health at any price, doctors now dictate, prescribe and legislate whilst forgetting the essential meaning of their job : to help and to care. A violent criticism of contemporary medicine.