The Specialist Stays in His Field

In 1956, the German Medical Assembly adopted a model professional code with a rule for specialist doctors: Fachärzte müssen sich grundsätzlich auf das Fach beschränken, dessen Facharztbezeichnung sie führen. Specialists must, as a rule, limit themselves to the field whose title they carry. They could also carry only one specialist title. The state medical chambers adopted the rule, Baden-Württemberg among them. On 9 May 1972, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled on complaints against these rules. The complaints succeeded, but on a formal ground. The court found that rules of this weight could not be left to the medical chambers alone and needed a basis in law. In 1991, the Federal Social Court summarized what followed from the decision. Limits by specialty can in principle be justified when the fields are drawn in a medically sound way.

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