ABSTRACT
The concept of quaternary prevention, resulting from a reflection on the doctor-patient relationship, is presented as a renewal of the age-old ethical requirement: first, a doctor must do no harm; second, the doctor must control himself/herself. The origin of the concept, its endorsement by the World Organization of Family Doctors (WONCA) and the European Union of General Practitioners (UEMO), its dissemination, and the debates to which it has given rise, are presented by a panel of authors from 10 countries. This collective text deals more specifically with: the bioethics of prevention, the importance of teaching Quaternary prevention and factual medicine, the social and political implications of the concept of quaternary prevention, and its anthropological dimensions.
Subject(s)
Humans , Preventive Health Services/ethics , Sociological Factors , Politics , AnthropologyABSTRACT
The concept of quaternary prevention (P4) refers to the idea that medicine has acquired the ability to damage through the proper exercise. Family medicine or general practice has the duty of recovering the ethical values and the exercise of a profession with the doctor-patient relationship serving to people's humanity. In the fourth Congress of Family and Community Medicine, held in Montevideo (Uruguay) last March 18-21, 2015, it was established the Working Group P4 WONCA-CIMF with communication tools included as constitutive part of P4. It was also remarked that we should be wary of attempts to denature the P4, diminishing its ethic value and limiting it to a reason for cost control.
