Medicina Defensiva

Introduction. The defensive medicine can be considered like the “cancer of the medicine” by its economic damage that it causes, by its evident progress and because itindicates the high degree of alteration of the medical practice, mainly in the rupture of the patient-physician relationship.
Objective. To conduct a study showingdata on the frequency of the MD, the medical professionals in our state, with the intention that once known figures, preventive policies are fixed the problem and thusavoid the MD will wreak havoc on budgetary expenditures of the institutions, patients and the individual physician.
Material and methods. A survey was conducted at theHospital Guillermo Almenara by applying a questionnaire of 5 reagents, with key questions designed to detect defensive medicine, involving physicians from differentspecialties.
Conclusions. The present study shows that the MD is lower than in other countries with high conduct at issue. Although there are no exact statistics of MD inour country, based on discussions with bibliographies and reliable people say there is a significant increase in MD for health personnel, so that specific policiesshould be established to reduce the MD and thus, help reduce the economic burden of the institutional, patients and the individual physician.
Recommendations. The effectiveway to counter the MD is by attitudes that lead to improved patient-physician relationship (communication etc.), respect and rights of patients and to enforce theirrights as health professionals. This is known as assertive medicine.
Key words: Defensive medicine, assertive medicine, patient-physician relationship, communication.