CONFIDANTS OF PATIENTS.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXX, Issue 98, 20 December 1904, Page 2

CONFIDANTS OF PATIENTS.

1 \ Physician Acts as a Sort of Medical 1 Father Confessor — Hears Many ; Family Secrets. That physicians should be accorded '■ the confidence of their clients— perhaps in a larger measure even than clergymen •—has always been. pretty generally recognized, says American Medicine. This confidence is, indeed, freely bestowed ma good many directions, sometimes in .-fact, to an entirely unnecessary extent. ' The physician is frequently mader acquainted with internal family matters which have absolutely no bearing upon the case for the treatment of which he had been called in, and which are, therefore, not of a nature to " exercise the slightest Influence upon such treatment. In this way the physiciahyis sometimes drawn into the position of general family father confessor. He will be made the confident of the husband in regard to things which should be kept a secret ' from the wife; the wife reveals to him . things of which the husband is to know | or suspect nothing; the daughter pours" ' the little secrets of her heart into his more or less unwilling ear on the understanding that he must not under any cirBumstances divulge them to her parents ; /and the young man appeals in the strict- ' est confidence to the doctor with regard to his experience, or, rather, lack: of experience. The picture is complete enough without the special mention of the cook and the butler. And as the miedical father confessor no more than the clerical one can betray the confidence reposed In him, he is in the unenviable position of hiving something to conceal practically from every member of the household with regard to every other member.