Cent Eur J Public Health 2005, 13(3):112-116

Quality of Life, Sustainable Future and Medical Education

Bencko V.1, Hnilicová H.2, Klein O.1
1 Charles University of Prague, 1st Faculty of Medicine, Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology
2 Institute of Social Medicine and Public Health, Prague Czech Republic

Substantial social and environmental changes in a global world as well as a new paradigm of medicine emphasizing high technology and evidence based approach bring to the current medicine many paradoxes. Undoubtedly, new era creates many positive opportunities and challenges for medical professionals. On the other side, traditional concept of medicine as basically humanistic "helping profession" is rather threatened. In this context, there is a need for a re-defining of medical curricula and to offer to the medical students the concepts and ideas which reflect a current development. Traditional public health terms such as "Primary Prevention", "Health Promotion", "Health Protection", "Health Determinants" should be re-defined and the new ones such as "Quality of Life" and "Sustainable Future" must be introduced as an integral part of medical education. The relevant concepts are discussed in the context of specific situation of the health care transformation in Central and Eastern European Countries.

Keywords: sustainable development, primary prevention, health protection, health promotion, monitoring of health state, quality of life, health related quality of life.

Received: September 30, 2004; Revised: May 31, 2005; Accepted: May 31, 2005; Published: September 1, 2005  Show citation

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Bencko V, Hnilicová H, Klein O. Quality of Life, Sustainable Future and Medical Education. Cent Eur J Public Health. 2005;13(3):112-116. PubMed PMID: 16218326.
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