Médecine & Liberté : Le réseau libéral des médecins suisses

Médecine & Liberté
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SOVEREIGN PATIENTS

Regulatory hurdles hinder the availability of new therapeutic products and hurt patients every day. Enlightened economists are taking a closer look at this frustrating problem. They propose institutional solutions based on patient sovereignty. Bart Madden, who will be speaking at various European conferences this month, is a pioneer in this field.

His novative concept of « Dual Tracking » allows patients and doctors to bypass administrative slowdowns, enabling them to access to experimental therapies if they so choose. Bart Madden’s fast lane goes in par with open information channels to specific databases designed to help doctors and patients weigh the potential risks and advantages of choosing a fast track. Bart Maddens approach is drawn from principles of experimental economics. Vernon Smith, Nobel economics Laureate in 2002, supports his work. Experimental economics starts from a deep and reasoned analysis of human behavior patterns. It uses a methodology that is consistent with psychological research techniques and with the latest discoveries in neuroscience.

By re centering economic paradigms on the individual, this new school radically breaks with archaic collectivist models that, in medical care as elsewhere, lead to rationing, to servitude and to human suffering. For Vernon Smith or Bart Madden, freedom of choice becomes an essential value. Medicine and economics meet on common humanistic ground. Medical progress breaks its bureaucratic shackles. The mission of the 21st Century physician moves up to a new and challenging level: that of serving informed and sovereign patients empowered to make their own decisions.

Alphonse Crespo MD

3 novembre 2008