INTRODUCTION The development of professional ethics, standards, practices, and safeguards for the physician in relation to society is as continuous a process as is the development of medicine itself. The Hippocratic Oath attests to the antiquity of the physician's concern for a responsible code of conduct, as the Hammurabi Code equally attests to the antiquity of society's demand that physician...

This paper examines confidentiality and its nature and analyses the guidelines laid down by the Hippocratic Oath as well as the British and World Medical Associations for maintaining such confidentiality between doctor and patient. There are exceptions to practically any code of rules and this is true also for confidentiality. Some of these exceptions make it appear that very little is confiden...

Background: Medical doctors’ strikes are a common global phenomenon. In the recent past, a number of strikes have been reported in various developing countries including India. The objective of this ethical overview is (a) to study and describe reasons, modalities and impacts of the doctors’ strikes in India, (b) to develop an ethical reflection on doctors’ strike and (c) to evaluate the doctor...

I will not give a fatal draught to anyone if I am asked, nor will I suggest any such thing. From the Hippocratic Oath. Seldom a day elapses that we do not encounter either minor or major evidence of digitalis overdosage. Such experience has led a member of the house staff of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital to remark that nowadays lanatoside is replacing homicide as a leading cause of death. Ber...