["Evidence-based medicine"--guidelines as a threat or necessity for physician and patient?]

Guidelines derived from 'evidence-based medicine' are supposed to provide assistance and information in order to improve diagnosis and therapy of individual patients and build up confidence in medical decisions. Guidelines possess no direct legal power. The doctor's freedom of decision must be warranted. Inadequate guidelines may have serious consequences: curtailment of therapeutic freedom, hampering of medical progress, deterioration of the relationship between doctors and their patients, risk of legal implementation and emergence of a defensive medicine.