title: [A good clinical guideline is an orientational tool, not a checklist].
abstract: Lege artis procedures, medical standards as well as guideline contents ought to be defined by health care professionals themselves. Therefore the medical profession carries a great responsibility to both continuously optimise diagnostic and therapeutic methods as well as their results and adapt them to medical progress. Standards and guidelines cannot replace a doctor's responsibility towards his patients. They can help doctors to find the right answer but they are not check-off lists. The practical application of an evidence-based guideline must result from a doctor's identification of a certain patient problem. This stage of identification is predominated by the individual doctor's internal evidence which reflects his medical knowledge, practical experience and the information arising from the individual relation between patient and doctor.
authors.affiliation: Bundesärztekammer und des Deutschen Arztetages, Köln. joerg-dietrich.hoppe@dgn.de
authors.forename: Jörg-Dietrich
authors.initials: JD
authors.lastname: Hoppe
mesh_terms: D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D010820:Physicians / Q000592:standards*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care