[Compliance with ethical and professional guidelines in aesthetic surgery - a task for institutional or national control?].

In the future medicine will become more and more involved in fields that are not principally concerned with curing illnesses. Against the background of an obviously increasing demand for aesthetic interventions, questions arise concerning the self-assessment of the physician and his/her ethical behaviour in this segment of medical services. The necessary rules of behaviour have frequently been formulated, in particular by the professional societies. In the meantime the German chamber of physicians has established ethically founded requirements on the basis of professionalism. These and the therein formulated principles of medical responsibility provide a solid foundation for the ethically justifiable and quality assured performance of aesthetic surgical interventions.