Læknablaðið - 15.11.1997, Side 61

LÆKNABLAÐIÐ 1997; 83
769
Fréttaskýring
European doctors
seek solutions
for a troubled hospital sector
Evrópskir unglæknar hafa þungar áhyggjur af framtíðar-
skipan heilbrigðismála og starfsemi sjúkrahúsa. Á ráð-
stefnu PWG, Permanent Working Group of European
Junior Doctors, sem haldin var í Köln 23. október síðast-
liðinn voru þessi mál til umfjöllunar. Síðar verður ítarleg-
ar greint frá niðurstöðum ráðstefnunnar.
Future medical work confer-
ence, Cologne 23 October,
1997
Junior doctors in 24 Europe-
an countries are now clialleng-
ing the hard pressure ofworking
conditions prevailing in most of
the health care systems. To a
varying degree, the problems are
similar in all countries: scarce
resources, stressful duty ar-
rangements, and lack of conti-
nuity of care in the doctor/pa-
tient relationship. However, the
doctors will also take a very crit-
ical look at their professional
culture.
The offers from the Europe-
an health care systems to their
citizens have never been as vast
as at present. The possibilities
of care have never been as
abundant. However, in most
countries, the growing range of
offers is not followed-up by in-
creasing resources. Throughout
Europe, a pronounced dissatis-
faction with this situation can be
observed among hospital em-
ployees as well as among pa-
tients - and hospital doctors
from 24 European countries
have agreed to do something
about this.
This work will be initiated at
a conference on Future medical
work - promoting health for pa-
tients and doctors organized by
the Permanent working group
of European junior doctors
(PWG) to be held in Cologne
on 23 October, 1997. Until that
date the official background pa-
per for the conference is consid-
ered confidential.
It is hardly surprising that the
pressing resource situation will
be one of the key themes of the
debate. The non-traditional ap-
proach is that the doctors now
take a critical look at them-
selves as well: the unsatisfacto-
ry working conditions of junior
doctors are also caused by out-
dated views and habits with re-
gard to the norms and culture of
the profession within the med-
ical group in relation to the con-
tent, distribution, and organiza-
tion of medical work.
The junior doctors recognize
that as opposed to e.g. nurses
and other health professionals
they have failed to find common
ground from which to resist the
pressure arising from increased
work loads, the responsibility
for the individual patient - of-
ten with limited possibilities of
administering that responsibil-
ity, frequent and wearing night
duties, inappropriate distribu-
tion of work, fragmented pa-
tient contacts, and other mat-
ters. While other health profes-
sions have succeeded in
strengthening their professional
identity, the doctors have had
to face the problems on an indi-
vidual basis - to a certain extent
forced by circumstances. The
result may be that many doctors
lose their satisfaction with and
motivation for medical work
and this is harmful not only to
themselves, but also to the pa-
tients and the development of
the profession.
These are the problems
which will be on the agenda at
the conference in Cologne,
where the participants, inter
alia, will discuss:
- the organization of medical
work in European hospitals, in-
cluding an analysis of the med-
ical staff structure and organiza-
tion of work,
-distribution of work and co-
operation with other personnel
groups,
- the objectives of medical
work, the doctor/patient rela-
tionship, and the internal „med-
ical culture“.
The PWG working group
which has prepared the confer-
ence has set up a number of pro-
posals for a new structure for