[Responsibility for the individual or the whole? Ethical considerations on medical responsibility]

Physician's patients are often faced with a conflict of interests between the benefit and other interests (society, institutions). This problem has emerged in medical history since the 18th century when the traditional loyalty towards the individual patient was challenged by a social orientations in the physician's ethos. Current bioethical theories regarding this professional conflict of interest are discussed and applied to allocation problems in HMO-health plans. It is argued that the conflict of interests can only be solved if doctors set their professional priority on the healing relationship towards the individual patient.