Healthy Skepticism Library item: 10183

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Hinks TS.
Ends never justify means
BMJ 2007 May 26; 334:(7603):1072
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7603/1072-b

Abstract:

Letters
Deceiving patients

The world has long known, and feared, the fallacy of consequentialism-claiming that ends can justify means- because ends simply cannot be predicted. We can never foresee the ultimate consequences of our actions.

In this world of increasing public scrutiny, it is beyond naivety to suggest the medical profession could espouse lying, without evoking a gross loss of trust in our profession, in our integrity or in the validity of any doctor-patient discourse, to name but a few consequences. How is the anaesthetist, busy drawing up her propofol, to weigh up all the chaotic, myriad future consequences of her lie against the benefits of relieving a few seconds’ anxiety?1

Where will this all end? One has only to look across the former Iron Curtain, where I have taught communication skills to doctors, to witness how erosion of the absolute requirement for truthfulness leaves an irrevocable legacy of a deep and pervasive . . .