SHOULD A DOCTOR TELL

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XLV, Issue 12019, 24 March 1920, Page 8

SHOULD A DOCTOR TELL

LONDON JUDGE’S OPINION. Once more that old question, “Should a doctor tell?” has cropped up—this time in the London Divorce Court.. It arose on the point whether a doctor is er titled to give evidence on confidential matters gathered by him in the secrecy of the consulting room concerning his patients. Mr Justice McOardie was the judge before Whom the question arose when Dr Solomon Radinsky, senior medical officer at Westminster Hospital, was called td give evidence as to disease for which, it be had treated a woman, resulting, so it was alleged, from her husband’s misconduct. Om entering the witness box" the doctor handed a letter to the judge from the chairman of the House Committees of Westminster Hospital, enclosing a copy of the regulation under which ypatients are treated, and saying: “All information obtained in regard to any person treated under the scheme. . shall be regarded as confidential. ” Unless ordered by the court to do so, he objected to making .any statement. It would be appreciated by the doctor, said the judge, that in courts of justice. there were even higher considerations than those which prevailed in the position of medical men. Apart from the obligations imposed by the order of the judges, it was most desirable that there should be the utmost loyal observance of that confidence reposed in doctors by patients. Always the history of the profession had been most honourable. Thereupon the doctor gave evidence.