The ethics of care has been a major topic of discussion in recent years. Many paradoxical injunctions are heard of in hospitals, for instance the strange insistence on “welfare”, as if a caregiver had to be told notto mistreat a patient. One has however to admit that the reality of caring isn’t exactly the ideal onepictured by the healthcare authorities. The ethical knowledge of caregivers remains pretty poor in spite ofthe numerous theoretical courses and the practice guidelines that they are provided with. Recent lawsdestined to help the physicians in their practice (the most important ones being the Kouchner law on therights of sick people and the quality of the healthcare system and the Leonetti law on the patients’ rightsand end of life) are for instance still quite misunderstood.In order for health care ethics not to remain a pious incantation, one has first of all to clarify the reasonswhy the ethical thinking is still in limbo and find out the origin of resistances to carry out in action themoral values preached by the official ethicians (beneficence, respect for autonomy, respect for dignityand so on). The structural impediments that cause patent disinterest for the most vulnerable persons arehere analyzed from an epistemological and phenomenological point of view based on a threefoldexperience (medical, pedagogical and managerial).A paradigm shift is necessary to get over these impediments. While recognizing fully the importance ofscience and rationality for medicine, one has to account for the complex reality, both objective andsubjective, of health care, including the growing pressure of economic considerations. Obviously, caringisn’t always an innate behavior when it comes to caregivers. Precise actions have thus to be taken in achanging socio-economic context to ensure that the ethics of care is incorporated by every one of them.Therefore, the new paradigm will have to be less theoretical and more practical, it will reevaluatesimplicity and commonness and will hold the act of caring as such to be ethical.
