RESUMO
This article is based in the book by Dr M Konner "Medicine at the crossroads". Medicine must be analyzed in three levels: the structure of the global society and its relationship to the populations's health; the institutions dedicated to health protection and promotion;and health related professions. The commented book is specifically focused on medical profession. The main problems of the profession and its role in society are analyzed. The excessively hierarchical and technological, and thus debumanized, relationship between physicians and patients. The high volume of surgical procedures and the exaggerated dependence on medications. The lack of preoccupation for mental disorders, the artificial prolongation of life and several other problems. The problems that arise when medical profession is inserted in market economy are analyzed, based on Chilean experience. That debilitates its trusteeship virtue, that is the basis of its social and political status. The contradictions that are generated by this new tendency of the profession and the strategies to face them ae depicted