The family doctor is at risk of extinction. There is bitterness in the words of Robert Anzalone, president of the Order of Doctors of Milan and past president of Snami (National Autonomous Union of Italian Doctors), at the "Days of General Medicine", held on Friday and Saturday in Como. According to Anzalone, "the figure of the general practitioner is undermined by bureaucracy, with the risk of disappearing the doctor-patient relationship". And not only "Today's doctor is at the center of often incongruous requests between local health authorities, patients and checks by police bodies". And so the white coat par excellence "is dejected, because he loses interest in his work, as well as for the disagreements with the patients, for the well-known bureaucratic reasons, for the pressures of the Local Health Authorities on prescriptive savings". And yet “healthcare costs and will cost more and more in relation to the increase in longevity – specifies Anzalone – and patients need to be told what the limits of healthcare are. But this task, as well as that of the doctor, must also belong to the health institution. With these premises, the concepts of ethics are changing and so the principle of freedom of care, solidarity and equality changes". But it is necessary "that the doctor returns to serving the sick and restores the empathy between the doctor and his patient, which is the basis of the particular relationship between the patient and his carer", concludes the past president of Snami. From Doctornews.it 11-13-06
