Medical Ethics

 "To Cure sometimes, to relieve often and to comfort always" is quoted as the duty of physicians. But a cursory survey of patients often conveys a different picture. Many physicians are often perceived as rude and patronising, which then begets the question `why.'

The answer to this question is not simple. The genesis of this behaviour among many doctors lies in their training in medical colleges, rather the `absence' of education about medical ethics. The subject of medical ethics is given prime importance in all western medical schools, but is surprisingly shelved away by the Indian medical curriculum. It is included under Forensic Medicine, which essentially deals with the legal aspects of medicine. I still fail to see the connection, as FM is essentially more about corpses, rather than living beings! In any case, medical ethics is a subject, which ought to be taught by clinicians, which is seldom done in most medical colleges.

To the common man (who is incidentally the patient), medical ethics is a topic, which deals with the following: duty of a physician, his limitations, the rights of patients and physician-patient issues like confidentiality, etc. At the outset, it might all sound like a lot of common sense, but then common sense isn't that common a commodity either!