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The Paradox of Health Care

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Abstract

The term ``paradox'' signifies acontradiction of some sort. Modern health careappears to be rich in contradictions, and it isclaimed to be paradoxical in a number of ways.In particular health care is held to be aparadox itself: it is supposed to do good, butis accused of doing harm. The objective of thisarticle is to investigate whether the conceptof paradox can serve as a framework foranalysing pressing problems in modern healthcare. To pursue this, three distinctive levelsof paradox are identified: resolvableparadoxes, antinomies and aporias. The analysisreveals that when facing the challenges ofmodern health care the focus of attentionshould be to resolve the resolvable paradoxes,to acknowledge the antinomies and to learn tolive with the aporias.

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  1. Center for Medical Ethics, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Box 1130, Blindern, 0318, Oslo, Norway

    Bjørn Hofmann

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  1. Bjørn Hofmann
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Hofmann, B. The Paradox of Health Care. Health Care Analysis 9, 369–386 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1013854030699

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