Clinical medicine rests upon three basic assumptions. The first is that medicine is something that happens between people. Second, medicine is performed through the patient-doctor dialogue. And third, the ultimate outcome of clinical practice is a cooperation or interaction between patient and doctor. Together, these three assumptions may challenge traditional and monological approaches to medical ethics. With the patient-doctor dialogue as its starting point, an ethical relationship may gradually develop that emerges by means of a certain process taking place between two autonomous individuals.