Le statut des medecins hospitaliers publics

Doctors working in public hospitals must be considered in terms of their dual role of public servants and practitioners. A comparison of the evolution of hospitals with that of doctor's place in them shows to that extent any definition of the legal status of hospital doctors is tied to those establishments' needs. In order to ensure full employment of hospital doctors, that status must be attractive. It is therefore, the product of a compromise between the liberal aspect of the practice of medicine and the performance of a public service. From this observation the author goes on to demonstrate the dual trend taking place as regards the status of hospital doctors : - hospital doctors are public servants : the traditional aspects of their mem- bership in a profession disappear, and their rights and obligations must be determined with regard to their role as publ - hospital doctors remain practitioners : because of the specific nature of the practice of medicine, their legal situation within the hospital cannot be redu- ced to that of bureaucrats. Thus, the trend toward the "bureaucratization" of the legal status of hospital doc- tors, although quite strong, does have its limits. The status of doctors working in public hospitals is different from the general status of public servants. Their posi- tion is particulary flexible compared with the general inflexibility of the status of public servants.