評論
打印
Sharp conflicts are now arising. Patients are learning to press for answers. Patients' bills ofrights require that they be informed about their condition and about alternatives for treatment.Many doctors go to great lengths to provide such information. Yet even in hospitals with the most eloquent bill of rights, believers in benevolent deception continue their age-old practices.Colleagues may disapprove but refrain from objecting. Nurses may bitterly resent having to take part, day after day, in deceiving patients, but feel powerless to take a stand.
劇烈的沖突正在出現。病人開始學會催問真實情況。根據病人應享有的權利的規定，醫生應將病情和可供選擇的治療方案通告病人。許多醫生盡可能向病人提供這些情況。然而，即使在對病人的權益考慮得最周到的醫院里，信奉"仁慈"欺騙的醫生們繼續他們傳統的古老做法。同事們也許不贊同，但避免公開表示反對。護士們對不得不日復一日地參與欺騙病人的做法也許深惡痛絕，但要抵制卻感到無能為力。
There is urgent need to debate this issue openly. Not only in medicine, but in other professions as well, practitioners may find themselves repeatedly in difficulty where serious consequences seem avoidable only through deception. Yet the public has every reason to be wary of professional deception, for such practices are peculiarly likely to become deeply rooted, to spread, and to erode trust. Neither in medicine, nor in law, government, or the social sciences can there be comfort in the old saying, "What you don't know can't hurt you."
及時對這個問題進行公開辯論非常必要。不僅在醫療業，而且在其他行業，從業者不斷發現，自己常處于似乎不采用欺騙手段就無法避免嚴重后果的困難處境。但是公眾完全有理由對職業性欺騙保持警惕，因為這種做法特別容易變得根深蒂固，蔓延滋長，并損害信任。無論醫療界、法律界、政府機構還是社會科學界，都不應從"不知者，不為所害"這句老話中得到絲毫慰藉。
