PROFESSIONAL SECRECY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 25, 29 July 1922, Page 17

PROFESSIONAL SECRECY

VIEWS OF LORD DAWSON OR PENN HONOUR OP A NOBLE PROFESSION (IK4K OCR OWN COKRISFONBINT.) LONDON, 2nd June. Before the Medico-Legal _ Society, the Bight Hon. Lord Dawson of Perm de- j Kvered an illuminating address on Pro- j fessional Secrecy, and so important does the editor of the London Hospital | Gazette consider the views stated on pro- | fessional ethics that ha counsels every medical student 'to get a copy of the address, and to keep it by him as a model exposition, truly philosophic and logical, of the aims and public spirit of what is and what must remain a- noble profession. If the law is to have the power to take advantage of a patient's illness and to compel the doctor to a disclosure should .occasion necessitate, all honour, he says, is at an end.. ■

At the outset Lord Dawson of Perm pointed out, in the interests of clarity, that the general principle of professional secrecy was not in dispute. Even the lawyer, he said, most jealous ,pi his unrestricted right to draw from a medical1 witness any or every secret which might, directly or indirectly benefit his client, would not ■wish, that, outside a court of justice, the intimacies of life,1 including of necessity intimacies of his own life, should not be completely protected from discussion aud gossip. The lecturer's theme was that the posi-_ tion of the doctor is so special, and the circumstances under which he gains hia knowledge are so unique, that protection should, in the interests of the public, be accorded to his evidence. This claim for privilege is not based on professional interests. "As a matter of fact the material interests of the doctor are not involved. On the other hand, professional honour is notably and deeply concerned. The privilege we claim is not the privilege of the doctor; it is the privilege of tho patient, just as the existing privilege of the lawyer.is, in reality, the privilege of the client. Until recently the public has been under the firm conviction that what was told a doctor was sacred, and this obligation of secrecy would be respected by the law Courts. And, accordingly, the public has been in no small way; perturbed and shocked by Judges' rulings in recent cases, to the effect that doctors were privileged! in no respect whatever." Lord Dawson specified two cases which caused concern because the respective Judge intimated that the law gave the doctor no special exemption, and in on« case the Judge made the statement, "with an abruptness and brusqueria which give the impression that the Judge had for the moment forgotten the existence of other learned professions besides his own." ,

According to the Common Law of England, a doctor is bound, in the wit-ness-iboXj to disclose communications, however confidential, mad© to him by a patient. This state of the law has obtained since the case of the Duchess of Kingston, who was tried for bigamy in 1776, before Lord Mansfield. Lord Alansfield's ruling, that communications by patients to doctors were in no way privileged, has been accepted in numerous cases up to the present day. The doctrine ' then set forth by Mansfield was later enunciated by Jessel, thus: "The communications made to a medical man whose advice is sought by a patient with respect to the probable ongin of the disease as to which he is consulted and which must necessarily be, made,, in order to enable the medical man to advise, and prescribo for the patient, are not protected." , CASE OF CLERGY AND LAWYERS, Lord Dawson turned next to the privilege existing in this country for lawyers and priests—for the former by#law, for the latter by universal practice. "For generations the law hasLoccupied a favoured position; it is, in v fact, the spoilt child of the professions. There is a danger; that any proposed extension of its special privileges to other callings may be criticised as contrary to the interests of the State and likely to be followed by grave results, when in reality it is the convenience of legal procedure which is provoking the opposition. The law says it is in accordance with the spirit of English law that communications between clients and lawyers should bo privileged. Agreed. But what about the spirit of English medicine? The law deals with justice, medicine' deals with health and life. ' Can it be contended that one is more important than the other ? I state with firm conviction that the usefulness of medicine to the community would be gravely prejudiced if the confidence ofvpatients were 1 destroyed^ >as 'it assuredly would be by the thought that. their statements to | their doctors were not sacred.

Relative to the. Church—Ayhat interests me is, that when my legal friends discuss the pros and cons of privilege/they do not like to ponder long about the privilege o£ the lawyer? on the gronud that it is necessary , for the administration of law, and I' am of. those who favour the privilege of lawyers. But there is no justification for the State giving complete privilege to a priest while 'denying it to a mediilil man; Since the Reformation the law has not recognised privilege for priests, but .such privilege is so recognised by custom that there is no instance of a Judge successfully pressing a priest to divulge what he has heard in the confessional, - and no Judge would succeed, for the whole force of the Catholic Church would be against/him. Whether the law recognises this privilege in theory is of small moment. What concerns us is'that the privilege is in practice absolute, and the knowledge of it prevents priests being \called as witnesses where their knowledge has origin in the confessional, and the facts which doctors learn from patients are every •whit as intimate as those confided to priests. "We regard the protection of the confidences of our patients as vital to that larger confidence of the public on which our 'power for good must for ever rest. In what we consider a sacred trust we are not unmindful of our duties as citizens, and I venture to appeal with confidence to the members of the sister profession to understand the force of our plea and give us their support."