Medical Ethics and Personal Doctors: Conflicts Between What we Teach and What we Want

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
As Hippocrates said to one of his students: “Let your best means of treating people be your love for them, your interest in their affairs, your knowledge of their condition, and your recognized attentiveness to them.“ A physician who is guided by this teaching must be a very caring person. He or she must care deeply about people. To care, in this sense, means to be troubled about the troubles of others. He or she must also care about being a good doctor, about being competent in all relevant respects. I believe that all thoughtful people want such women and men as their personal doctors. We want our doctors to be caring persons, to be attentive to our needs and responsive to our concerns. When our doctors talk with us, we hope that they will speak to the unique individuals we each correctly believe ourselves to be.

This publication has 4 references indexed in Scilit: