Förtroendets kapital

Om läkekonstens förutsättningar på den medicinska marknaden

Abstract

To gain the trust of patients, the general public and the state has always been a decisive prerequisite for the work and position in society for doctors. This article deals with the doctor's opinions on what personal qualities and other circumstances are of importance in a therapeutic relationship, and what confidence inspiring factors are legitimate or false and condemnable. During the 19th century, trust for the doctor was seen as based mainly on his personal qualities and moral competence; after the Second World War trust instead was to be a result of scientific and medical competence. The quack, on the contrary, was said to acquire trust on the ground of false promises, and the patients were credulous enough to believe in them. The therapeutic effect of alternative therapies have been said to be "only placebo effects". These effects — among other things the result of a trustful doctor-patient relationship — are nowadays recognizes as very potent and health enhancing. Trust and confidence are a hard currency on the medical market, which no healing art can do without.