Current dissertations

Institute of History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine

Doctoral candidate

Mark Medelin

Working title of the dissertation

History of the development of preventive medical check-ups for children in the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

The aim of this doctoral project is to examine the development of preventive check-ups for children in the Federal Republic of Germany, which has received little attention to date. Prophylactic measures in the form of preventive check-ups represent an important component of population-wide prevention, which became more central to medicine in the 20th century and are already part of the research at the Institute of History, Ethics and Philosophy of Medicine at Hannover Medical School. Against the background of public health and its sub-field of prevention in particular, it is to be shown from which political, social and medical circumstances the unanimous legal anchoring of the so-called preventive check-ups for children as a compulsory benefit of the statutory health insurance of December 21, 1970 emerged. I would like to take a closer look at the views of the various players (physicians, health insurance companies, politicians, the general public) using archive finds such as correspondence or minutes of committee meetings. Particular attention will be paid to the medical profession, especially pediatricians. I would like to answer the question of the means by which pediatricians exerted their influence on preventive measures over the course of the 20th century. In this way, the efforts of pediatricians to introduce preventive medical check-ups for infants and young children by law from the mid-1960s onwards will be presented, as will the political hurdles. Feasibility and the cost-benefit analysis were important benchmarks in this regard. The thesis is based on archived Bundestag debates and minutes of committee meetings, which can be viewed in the Federal Archives in Koblenz. A further focus of the dissertation is the examination of the extent to which the German population was willing to make use of preventive services. An outlook will compare the utilization of these benefits expected by the legislator with the actual utilization.