MEDICINE AND OLD ETHICKS (WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO ELECTRONIC REACTIONS)
Authors: T. Horder
Journal: BMJ (1924)

I HOPE that you will not be disappointed with me this evening, in that I am not reading you a paper upon some academie medical subject, nor giving you my experiences in any matters of diagnosis and treatment.There are some larger aspects of our work, and of our relations to the community, upon which it is sometimes useful to reflect.Medical men are citizens as well as doctors, and the medical profession has greate-r privileges and deeper obligationm than are represented by the daily round of visits to sick persons and the discussion in the consulting room.I propose to deal with one of these larger aspects of our professional life and conduct to-day.Not in a spirit of dogmatismi, as one qualified to dictate to others,, but' in a spirit of inquiry.I am hopeful none the less that such a spirit may lead to some concerted view of what our attitude should be towards a question that has been in.my own mind and in the minds of many others far some time past,, and whiala has now become of such moment that I believe we are not acting in our own or in the public interest if we leave it longer unconsidered.If to be a law unto himself can scarcely be defended as a rule of conduct by the individual in his private life, it can certainly not be defended when that individual is a member of an honourable profession occupying the position in the public esteem and confidence which we enjoy as medical men.I spoke of our privileges antI our obligations.We cannot divorce these two things; they are inseparable.True, there is a section of the public that looks askance at us, does not trust us, thinks of us as a close corporation existing only for our own ends.There are even those who regard the " regular " practitioner as a narrow-minded bigot who obstructs, rather than furthers, those advances in medical science and practice which tend to increase the publi-c welfare.By them we are often accused of jealousy and bias-jealousy of the unqualified practitioner who clai-ms to posses knowledge and skill whereby he can assuage human ill, and bias towards discovries which emanate from outside the profemion or, if emanating from within, are the product of the brains of certain of our colleagues whose methods we dislike or whose honesty we doubt.One of the most distinguished of modern writers-, who will be recognized without difficulty by this very incident, recently lectured to the stud-ents of my hospital upon the.subject " The disadvantages of being qualified."He made it quite clear that, in his opinien, it would be better for suffering humanity if no one was qualified at all.But in spite of these things it remains a fact that the great majority of men and women do trust us with the conduct of their health, do believe that we know more about it than those who have had no training in the schools, and know more about it even than they do themselves.This is our privilege, that they place themselves confidingly and without question in our hands, that they rely upon us to- heal them, and those dear to them, to save them from 'death if this be possible, and, in any case, to free them from pain which is the " worst of ills."In return fbr this great privilege, we have obligations no less great.ITese obligations, as if seems to me, are of two kind.We are under the obligation of employing on our patient's behalf every piece of knowledge that can be of service in the study of pathology and every measure that can asSst treatment.And we are under the obligation of beig honest.1.most of us, seeing that we belong to no particular