2009-The Physician of the Future English and Catalan

F UNDACIÓN E DUCACIÓN M ÉDICA (FEM) 42 1.7. Health/Disease Boundaries Under the in&uence of di'erent agents with speci"c interests, the boundaries between health and disease are being rede"ned. In doing so, an increasing number of conditions traditionally considered natural or physiological are incorporated as new diseases patterns. $ese include menopause, age-related sex-drive diminution, tiredness and pain, as well as stress or shortness, among others. Also, “ risk factors ” are dealt with by physicians as if they were real diseases in an abusive use of the theory of risks, disregarding the fact that risks are statistical probabilities without individual deterministic logic. Since societygrants themedical professionnormative capacity tode"ne what constitutes a disease, its cooperation, knowingly or unknowingly, with interested social agents in widening the concept of disease, helps to create a negative image of the profession that is not even perceived by its members.