In this eye-opening look at the doctor-patient decision-making process, physician and law professor Jay Katz examines the time-honored belief in the virtue of silent care and patient compliance. Historically, the doctor-patient relationship has been based on a one-way trust -- despite recent judicial attempts to give patients a greater voice through the doctrine of informed consent. Katz criticizes doctors for encouraging patients to relinquish their autonomy, and demonstrates the detrimental effect their silence has on good patient care. Seeing a growing (...) need in this age of medical science and sophisticated technology for more honest and complete communication between physician and patients, he advocates a new, informed dialogue that respects the rights and needs of both sides. In a new foreword to this edition of The Silent World of Doctor and Patient , Alexander Morgan Capron outlines the changes in medical ethics practice that have occurred since the book was first published in 1984, paying particular attention to the hotly debated issues of physician-assisted suicide and informed consent in managed care. (shrink)

It is broadly held that confidentiality may be breached when doing so can avert grave harm to a third party. This essay challenges the conventional wisdom. Neither legal duties, personal morality nor personal values are sufficient to ground professional obligations. A methodology is developed drawing on core professional values, the nature of professions, and the justification for distinct professional obligations. Though doctors have a professional obligation to prevent public peril, they do not honor it by breaching confidentiality. It is shown (...) how the protective purpose to be furthered by reporting is defeated by the practice of reporting. Hence there is no conflict between confidentiality and the professional responsibility to protect endangered third parties. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Principles of Biomedical Ethics. By Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress.