Aphorismatic literature and private correspondence represent interesting sources to reconstruct the relationship between physician and patient, throwing light on particular aspects of it. The letters, which were written by Maria Teresa of Austria to her sons, appear very interesting from this point of view and contribute to understand the organization of health care system in Austria and in Tus...

The threat of malpractice litigation in the United States is encouraging physicians again to assume responsibility for their patients. The fundamental ethical problem, however, is that this approach denies the patient's moral agency. In this essay, responsibility to patients, rather than for them, is discussed as an alternative to the emerging neo-paternalism. Responsibility to avoids the ethic...

The CMA's policy on the patient-physician relationship and the sexual abuse of patients follows a review of policies and initiatives of its provincial and territorial divisions and other professional associations. The CMA's approach to this policy has been to consider the overall patient-physician relationship in order to understand factors associated with functional and dysfunctional relations...

The definition of a contract according to the Oxford English Dictionary is a ‘mutual agreement between two or more parties that something shall be done’. Patient contracts stray far from this definition and serve many other purposes beyond agreement over a course of action. As shown in Table 1, the intent of contracts varies by clinical situation (10). Nonetheless, they share one common feature...

OPEN AND FRANK COMMUNICATION BETWEEN DOCTORS AND THEIR patients has always been the cornerstone of effective health care delivery. Patients willingly relinquish detailed information about their physical conditions plus personal and family histories to which few people, if any, are ever privy. Physicians are entrusted to use this private knowledge, not for personal gain, but to provide curative ...

This paper highlights the principle of non-maleficence from sections of the Hippocratic oath and those entailed in various declarations of medical ethics and conduct. The moral dilemmas associated with adherence or efforts at adherence to the principle were indicated with the use of prepared cases. The centrality of the paper is the moral conflict encountered by physicians in their efforts at m...

CONTEXT Many studies have documented race and gender differences in health care received by patients. However, few studies have related differences in the quality of interpersonal care to patient and physician race and gender. OBJECTIVE To describe how the race/ethnicity and gender of patients and physicians are associated with physicians' participatory decision-making (PDM) styles. DESIGN,...