[Patients' advocate or defender of the welfare state?].

The author discusses the general practitioner's difficult role of working for the best of the individual patient and at the same time being obliged to follow rules and regulations that limit this role. Attention is drawn to the particularly difficult task of defending the patient's interests, parallel to checking the patient for the social insurance system. Doctors in general, and general practitioners in particular, cannot avoid working with different and to some extent contradictory objectives.