This text deals with important questions concerning the medical profession in Greece, the physician-patient relationship and the physician in relation to the health-care system. Access to the medical profession, control over the practice of medicine and the rights and duties of physicians and patients are discussed, and efforts made to explain the concepts of good care, consent, privacy and compensation for medical injuries.;Emphasis is given to the special patient categories, such as the minor patient, the mental patient and the dying patient, and specific activities like abortion, medically assisted conception, reproductive technologies, prenatal diagnostics, sterilisation and transplantation are examined.