Last update:
02-Oct-2020

The hero worship of doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic could be interpreted as the supreme expression of health service and altruism. The epic-war metaphor applies to a confrontational attitude to disease, hierarchical leadership in health systems and aggressiveness in medical training. Medical professionalism, originally defined as competence, honesty, respect, altruism and integrity, is a consensual concept, but the definition has evolved along with social and biotechnological developments. In Greece, medical professionalism struggles against reduced financing and the increasing burden of insured but unemployed patients, the bureaucracy of the National Health System, the tradition of clientism and the absence of a strong influential scientific tradition. Uncertainty in medicine and the prerequisites for a healing relationship make claims for empathy, acceptance of vulnerability, setting of boundaries in the work environment, and consensus. It appears that interconnection and network professionalism are the emerging features of professionalism in medicine.

Key words: Empathy, Hero, Network, Professionalism, Uncertainty, War metaphor.