Law and Medicine in the Multicultural Mediterranean

The exponential increase in migratory flows poses the problem of revising therapeutic protocols from an ethical and legal standpoint. This phenomenon gives rise to “complex therapeutic relationships”, within which health care providers know that patients do not always share scientific references and some key concepts such as illness, health, diagnosis and prognosis, because of their culture of origin. There is no natural “social contract” in this area between those who suffer and those who should provide care. The doctor must therefore try out innovative and unconventional approaches. The health care worker must adopt a multiculturally compatible and effective approach, and should be as open as possible to varying their clinical and scientific contribution, linking their work to that of other individuals capable of bridging the existing situational gap. From a strictly legal point of view, protection of every human being's health responds to an intimate need for human solidarity and, at the same time, to a logic of public health-related prevention. It’s necessary engage specific epidemiological observers to assess the phenomenon of migration as a whole, in short, medium and long term perspectives, encouraging knowledge-based research and field studies on the primary illnesses affecting foreigners.