[Medical ethics: innovation due to deficiencies?]

A historical follow-up using three examples--euthanasia, choice of therapy for tuberculosis of bones and articulations and economic management of a medical office reveals that comprehensive timeless medical ethics independent from cultural and social influences ('hippocratic oath') do not exist. There are, however persistent as well as increasingly new fields of conflict in daily practise. The latter are partly related to increased medical efficiency. Deficiencies in explicit ethic reflexions and empiric research for coping with such problems led to interdisciplinary medico-ethical work groups and journals over the last years. In this context traditional subjective ethics of care founded on altruism still remain important: The present essay shows, why the new objective and the older subjective approach to moral dimensions of healing professions are mutually founded on each other and should converge in the course of a decision process.