Code of ethics of the American Medical Association.

  • American Medical Association.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Code of ethics of the American Medical Association. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    and fidelity. They should study, also, in their deportment, so as to unite tenderness with firmness, and condescension with authority, as to inspire the minds of their patients with gratitude, respect, and confidence. § 2. Every6 case committed to the charge of a physician should be treated with attention, stea- diness, and humanity. Reasonable indulgence sbould be granted to the mental imbecility and caprices of the sick. Secrecy and delicacy, when required by peculiar circumstances, should be strictly observed ; and the familiar and confidential intercourse to which physicians are admitted in their professional visits, should be used with dis- cretion, and with the most scrupulous regard to fidelity and honour. The obligation of secrecy extends beyond the period of professional services ; —none of the privacies of personal and domestic life, no infirmity of disposition or flaw of character observed during professional attendance, should ever be divulged by him except when he is im- peratively required to do sc. The force and ne- cessity of this obligation are indeed so great, that professional men have, under certain circumstances, been protected in their observance of secrecy by courts of justice. § 3. Frequent visits to the sick are in general b [See Percival's Medico) Ethict, ch. ii. § 1.]