[Evolution of medical responsibility and code of ethics]

The evolution of the medical responsibility cannot escape from the determining influence of the scientific progress, but it is also significantly influenced by sociological and psychological factors that often are more difficult to analyse. If the ethical rules express the physicians' obligations in legal terms, it perfectly determines the spirit which must drive every physician thus revealing his sense of responsibility. This concept of the medical responsibility distinguishes and differentiates itself from the penalty responsibility and from the compensation responsibility which only takes place in the context of the compensation for a harm caused. The acquisition of the prime sense of the responsibility is a product of a background dominated by the experience, the example, the conscience. The expression of the medical responsibility is most of all personal, but more and more fits in with the public health issues and becomes a collective responsibility. Finally in order to meet the more and more accurate specialists' demands, the physician's responsibility which must remain within the boundaries of his competence must be fulfilled in the frame of a team. This dimension imposes on him new regulations that affect the quality of the relationship between the various contributors. An evolution of the responsibility thus grows according to the progress and within the adapted scope of ethics.