[Ethics and ethos of the patient]

The medicine of the present is dominated by an asymmetrical distribution of rights to the patient and duties to the physician; the virtues are seldom taken into consideration. In contrast, in the past, the duties of the patient and the rights of the physician have always been a part of the discussion. Beyond this, the opinion was put forward that both the patient and the physician could allow themselves to be guided by the virtues as a matter of course. In medicine, the ethics of principles are substantially dependent upon the ethics of virtues.