Self-criticism of physicians, patient participation and risk competence.

Self-criticism of physicians and patient participation are the pillars of modern medical ethics and medical programmes. Patients expect risk minimisation from physicians, mostly without realising how much they could actively do themselves in this respect. But what about the willingness of German people to take risks, how high is it really at present? Direct empirical data are not available, but results from general empirical research show that people’s willingness to take risks is probably rather low. Post-heroic societies of welfare states are less likely to take risks than supposedly heroic ones. Therefore, the question whether it is responsible for medical experts to transfer even more responsibility to non-medical laypeople becomes increasingly important in a social context.