![handle is hein.journals/medlgjr36 and id is 1 raw text is:
THE MEDICO-LEGAL
JOURNAL
Founded 90I
Vol. 36 1968 Part One
EDITORIAL
The Whole Truth, or the Hippocratic Oath?
. All that may come to my knowledge in the exercise of my profession or
outside of my profession or in daily commerce with men, which ought not to be
spread abroad, I will keep secret and never reveal. .. . Thus runs part of the
Hippocratic Oath, which is historic evidence of the high ideals of the practice of
medicine down through the ages. But how far is the doctor privileged today in
relation to matters of professional confidence, and should there be any alteration
in the present state of the law? These questions were considered in the 16th
Report of the Law Reform Committee, on Privilege in Civil Proceedings [Cmnd.
3472]. In this report, the Committee defined privilege in the law of evidence as
the right of a person to insist on there being withheld from a judicial tribunal
information which might assist it to ascertain facts relevant to an issue upon which
it is adjudicating. The subject is considered under a number of heads which do
not concern us here, but the doctor-patient relationship is also dealt with at
paragraphs 48-52.
The Committee state that this is a relationship to which no absolute privilege
attaches but which, in practice, causes little difficulty. Two kinds of information
are distinguished, the first, which resulted from clinical observation of the patient
(e.g. symptoms of venereal disease), and secondly, information communicated by
the patient to the doctor for the purpose of enabling him to diagnose and
prescribe. The Committee on Personal Injury Litigation under the chairmanship
of Lord Justice Winn is considering whether privilege should apply to hospital
and other medical reports, and the Law Reform Committee intend their general
recommendations to be treated as subject to any specific recommendations affect-
ing medical reports which may be made by the Winn Committee.
While personal injury cases are the commonest of those in which doctors are
witnesses, there may be others in which justice cannot be done without a doctor
disclosing information which he has obtained in the course of the doctor-patient
relationship. The committee conclude that where a doctor is called, whether by
the patient himself or by some other party, to give evidence upon an issue as to
the mental or physical condition of one of his patients it is impracticable to define](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/medlgjr36&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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