ABSTRACT
The central question this paper addresses is whether the efforts and changes in some areas of the present-day health sector are adequate responses to the developments of the last SO years in the relationship between patients and health care professionals. If this objective is taken seriously, account must be also taken of some of the assumptions implied in the title of the present paper. Speaking of a paradigm shift in this context means applying Kuhn’s theory of scientific revolutions to medicine and the health sector in general. Doing so also means working under the assumption that such a scientific revolution - or paradigm shift - from an old paradigm to a new one has taken place, or to put it more exactly: to a new paradigm of ethics in medicine and the health sector. This hypothesis is based on many premises and thus requires closer scrutiny. It will also be necessary to outline the normative aspects of this hypothesis in order to be able to judge the adequacy of the answers at all.
