2009-The Physician of the Future English and Catalan

F UNDACIÓN E DUCACIÓN M ÉDICA (FEM) 66 2.7. A competent, e"ective and safe physician Society delegates to the medical profession the responsibility of de"ning what health is and its boundaries with disease. $erefore, physicians should be able to di'erentiate both concepts disregarding any attempts by other parties to convert health into a consumer product or to widen the concept of illness for spurious interests. Physicians should also be capable of reasonably setting out risks derived from the ever- increasing number of risk factors, without further alarming patients who are already over-users of the health care system in a futile attempt to overcome such risks or to prevent conditions with little impact on health. Physicians, therefore, should help their patients to overcome the fears that are so prevalent nowadays and prevent them turning into what Bauman refers to as “ substitute objectives” .