Abstract
Discussions of the ethical aspects of the physician-patient relationship generally concentrate on interpersonal questions about such things as decisionmaking, mutual rights and responsibilities, autonomy and paternalism, treating patients as persons rather than as cases, truth-telling, and informed consent; or else they are concerned with more specialized topics such as euthanasia, abortion, genetic counselling, refusing treatment, orders not to resuscitate, and triage. All of these questions are obviously important. In this essay, however, I propose to approach the physician-patient relationship somewhat differently, namely, from the point of view of medical professionalism. I shall examine the ethical requirements and constraints governing this relationship that are binding on physicians by virtue of their status as members of the medical profession. The body of norms that are involved here will be referred to as the internal morality of medicine, 1
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