[The Choosing Wisely Initiative (CWI): Background, aims and problems of a professional campaign against oversupply].

The Choosing Wisely Initiative (CWI) started in 2012 follows a proposal by Howard Brody (2010). Using CWI, the US ABIM Foundation continued its work to strengthen medical professionalism. The text describes CWI's development, aims, mission, and dissemination.

[The Dawn of Modernity: Giovanni Boccaccio's "The Decameron" and the Tradition of Genetic Understanding].

"The Decameron" by Giovanni Boccaccio is a work which stands between the Middle Ages and Modernity. There are theories which postulate that concepts of identity and individuality, which arose with the dawn of Modernity, have an influence on mental illness. We chose a hermeneutic approach towards "The Decameron" to analyse the depiction of a changing society, of love, mental suffering and the role of therapeutic interventions.

How Do Patients Experience Individualized Medicine? A Qualitative Interview-based Study of Gene Expression Analyses in the Treatment of Breast Cancer.

Introduction: In recent years, the hopes and expectations associated with so-called individualized medicine have been the subject of intense debate as has the medical potential of this approach. Questions about the uses of gene expression analyses for decisions on adjuvant systemic treatment options for patients with breast cancer have played a prominent role in this debate. There are a number of empirical studies on the effect of gene expression tests on the therapy decisions of physicians and the potentially conflicted decisions for patients.

[Value-based health care (VbHC): Whence and wither].

Since about 2005 VbHC has become a prominent movement on the border between population medicine and health economics. The "value" it is aiming at is defined as health care "outcomes per dollar spent". The text focuses on the work of two prominent proponents: M.

[On the road to psychiatric reform : Reconstructing the political preparation of the first Enquete Commission of the German Bundestag].

Background: The purpose of this paper is to analyze the political preparation of the Enquete Commission of the German Bundestag which aimed at assessing and improving the psychiatric and psychotherapeutic/psychosomatic care in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Methods: We performed a selective literature review and a hermeneutic analysis of political, parliamentary and administrative records from public archives which reflect and help reconstruct the run-up process to the so-called Enquete of psychiatry.

Results: Literature and documents show how individual actors both in the mental health professions and politics bundled activities in the domains of psychiatry and mental health care as well as health/social politics; they helped to implement political, parliamentary and administrative steps leading up to the Enquete of the German Bundestag (1971-1975).

[Advance directive of probands in pharmaceutical research : A medical ethics discussion].

In the fourth Act on the amendment of pharmaceutical legal and other regulations in November 2016, the legislature has designated the proband advance directive based on the instrument of patient advance directive to enable group beneficial research with persons not capable of giving consent. This article describes the existing conditional need for group beneficial research and presents the problem of the decisive instrument for advance directives at the center of the considerations. The features of the proband advance directive concluded by the legislature stand in opposition to a successful implementation, particularly due to the necessary concrete clarification content far in advance for informed research participants.

[Psychoanalysis and Psychiatrie-Enquete: expert interviews and document analysis].

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the perception of the role of psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts in the coming about of the Psychiatrie-Enquete in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). We performed a qualitative content analysis of expert interviews with persons involved in the Enquete (or witnessing the events as mental health professionals active at the time), a selective literature review and an analysis of documents on the Enquete process. Expert interviews, relevant literature and documents point to a role of psychoanalysis in the Enquete process.

[Clinical autopsies from a medical ethics perspective].

Background: Autopsy quotas in Germany are persistently low. By way of providing an explanation, the (ethical) reservations of the general population against autopsies are presented.

Objective: Normative assessment of clinical autopsies, elaboration of ethically relevant arguments for and against autopsies and review of the suspected reservations of the general population.

[The 69th Congress-urologists nominated for the Nobel Prize : Not everyone got a prize: four biographical sketches].

Our research group has reconstructed why the board certified urologists Werner Forssmann (1904-1979) and Charles Huggins (1901-1997) received the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine (1956, and 1966, respectively). But the history of "Urology and the Nobel Prize" is in fact more multifaceted than the success stories of these two laureates suggest. James Israel (1848-1926), Berlin, Félix Guyon (1831-1920), Paris, Peter J.

"History, Theory and Ethics of Medicine": The Last Ten Years. A Survey of Course Content, Methods and Structural Preconditions at Twenty-nine German Medical Faculties.

"History, Theory, Ethics of Medicine" (German: "Geschichte, Theorie, Ethik der Medizin", abbreviation: GTE) forms part of the obligatory curriculum for medical students in Germany since the winter semester 2003/2004. This paper presents the results of a national survey on the contents, methods and framework of GTE teaching. Semi-structured questionnaire dispatched in July 2014 to 38 institutions responsible for GTE teaching.

[Attempting a Great Integration : Paul Martini and the First Post-War Conference of the German Society for Internal Medicine].

The long established German Society for Internal Medicine (DGIM) profoundly incriminated itself through its actions and positions during the National Socialist era. The German clinical physician Paul Martini assumed the part of reorganizing the DGIM prior to its first post-war convention in 1948 in Karlsruhe. Martini, who himself had opposed the Nazi regime, adopted a course of comprehensive integration.

[Impact of Anthropologic Psychiatry on Psychiatrie-Enquete and Psychiatric Reform in West Germany].

Analysis of the perception of effects of anthropological psychiatry on the Psychiatrie-Enquete and psychiatric reform in the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany). Qualitative content analysis of expert interviews and systematic literature search. Literary sources and expert interviews point to the impact of the anthropologic concept on discourse on and approach to those suffering from mental illness.

["When all of you will be forgotten, the name Israel will still be shining" : James Israel (1848-1926): a career in the German Empire and his nomination for the Nobel Prize].

In 1902, the Berlin Jewish urologist James Israel was nominated for the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine. Taking scholar, social, and political aspects into consideration, this biographical essay traces how James Israel gained a sound scientific reputation especially in kidney surgery within Imperial Germany and its antisemitic attitude and how he promoted urology to become a specialty in its own right.

Munich anatomy and the distribution of bodies from the Stadelheim execution site during National Socialism.

During the reign of National Socialism (NS) anatomical institutes regularly received bodies of executed prisoners in steadily increasing numbers. After 1939, the execution site at Stadelheim prison in Munich supplied not only Munich anatomy but also the institutes in Erlangen, Innsbruck and Würzburg. Due to the disappearance of the Munich body journals, the exact dimension and procedure of body procurement from Stadelheim remained unknown for 70 years.

[Crawford Williamson Long - The true discoverer of anesthesia?].

October 16, 1846 is regarded as the birth of anaesthesia at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. However, was this really the first anaesthesia with sulphuric ether? In the priority dispute that started already in 1846 there were more participants: WTG Morton, CT Jackson and H Wells. Not involved was CW Long, who has already administered ether anaesthesia in 1842.

A Material History of Electroshock Therapy : Electroshock Technology in Europe until 1945.

The article considers the history of electroshock therapy as a history of medical technology, professional cooperation and business competition. A variation of a history from below is intended; though not from the patients' perspective (Porter, Theory Soc 14:175-198, 1985), but with a focus on electrodes, circuitry and patents. Such a 'material history' of electroshock therapy reveals that the technical make-up of electroshock devices and what they were used for was relative to the changing interests of physicians, industrial companies and mental health politics; it makes an intriguing case for the Social Construction of Technology theory (Bijker et al.

[History of anesthesia : "From narcosis to perioperative homeostasis"].

In the western World 16 October 1846 is often called "Ether Day", marking the beginning of anesthesia. Before that date, for physicians there was only a struggle against pain. In the following 170 years all fields of general anesthesia as well as regional and local anesthesia were continuously developed.

[Dealing with Parenthood among Mental Health Service Users During Inpatient Treatment: Mental Health Professionals' Perspectives to Barriers and Facilitators].

To gain insight into mental health professionals' subjective perceptions of parenthood among psychiatric patients during inpatient treatment. 31 problem-centered semi-structured interviews with psychiatric professionals were conducted and analyzed by content analysis methods. From participants' perspectives, parenthood issues are mainly relevant during hospital admission when child care has to be secured.