A code of medical ethics : with general and special rules for the guidance of the faculty and the public in the complex relations of professional life / by Jukes de Styrap.

  • De Styrap, Jukes, 1815-1899.
Date:
1890
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A code of medical ethics : with general and special rules for the guidance of the faculty and the public in the complex relations of professional life / by Jukes de Styrap. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    4- When a practitioner attends for, or in consultation with another, and it appears necessary to change the treat- ment, it should be done with the most scrupulous care, so as not to injure the reputation or wound the feelings of the previous attendant. Z/w-necessary, meddlesome inter- ference with the treatment should be carefully avoided as unjust to the family doctor, and derogatory to true science.* 5. When a practitioner is consulted by a patient (or other member of the family) whom he has previously attended as the officiating friend or locum tenens of another during sickness or absence from home, he should act in * What, it has been critically asked by an eminent practitioner (the late Sir Robert Christison), since the preceding was penned, should be the conduct'of the Consultant when he finds that the ordinary medical attend- ant has misunderstood the case, or, it may be, has committed a grievous error? We reply that, in obedience to the 'royal law' (James, ch. II., v. 8,) he should, while striving to do his duty to the patient, at the same time endeavour judiciously to shield his brother-practitioner from the obloquy and prejudice which are always, in a greater or less degree, attached by patients to an error in judgment by their doctor;—for who, it may be replied, has not in the course of his professional life committed like grievous errors, of which the 1 still small voice within ' is alone cognizant and the sole accusant! In conflict with the preceding opinion is that expressed by the late Abraham Banks, Esq., in his 'Medical Etiquette' published in 1839, as follows: and which the compiler, though dissenting therefrom, deems it right to insert, and leave it to the calm judgment of the practitioner to conscientiously accept, or alike reject. Nothing can be more agreeable to a rightly constituted liberal mind, than to give an opinion in confirmation of the judicious treatment adopted by another; but when it happens that there has been most palpable neglect, or most decided mal-treatment, a conscientious man is necessarily thrown into a very unenviable moral dilemma. Strongly reluctant to infringe in the least degree upon the claims of generosity, or to lay himself open to the slightest imputation of illiberality, he yet feels a moral responsibility