Die publizistische Entdeckung des Patienten

For centuries the medical profession felt it was important that patients remain anonymous and confidentiality was fundamental. This changed on December 3, 1967. When Louis Washkansky became the first recipient of a human heart, a dramatic change took place. Worldwide, media carried stories about him, his fate and this sensational operation and its consequences. What did the German press coverage look like? This content analysis with numerous quantitative and qualitative categories describes in detail how 20 newspapers and magazines, during 8 weeks and 458 articles, covered and commented on this first heart transplant as well as many subsequent ones. It also shows which developments and structures shape medical journalism. This survey, originally a 1972 summa cum laude PhD thesis, is the first German-language empirical work on medical journalism. It relates how the now no longer anonymous patient was discovered by the media.