Men without chests: Presidential address

Abstract

In coming before the body of the Central Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists this morning, I am discharging the most difficult of the responsibilities that are charged to the president of the organization, that of addressing the Association about some matter that is important in our field, and of doing that with integrity and sensitivity. The subject I have chosen to speak about has to do with decision making. As I hope will be clear as the speech unfolds, I consider actions derived from decision making the most important single problem facing the body of medicine in the United States today. The magnitude of the problem is definitely not limited to the practice of medicine, but I will confine my remarks to that field. Until quite modern times, almost all persons believed the universe to be such that there was a congruence of our nature, our feelings, and the universe wherein we live. An excellent example of this congruence is expressed in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America, where it is stated, We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness .... In the early years of the last century, with the introduction of Hegel's system 'Qf philosophy, which incorporates the thesis-anti thesis-synthesis concept, relativism was born. The fruit of relativism is a general philosophic theory that all values are subjective and trivial. In our day this has worked out by the fluidity of the