BMJ 2001;323:930 ( 20 October )

Letters

Wanted: social contract for practice of medicine

    Ethical framework for using medical records is needed
    Another expert body would be mistrusted
    Acceptable practice needs to be determined by the public

Ethical framework for using medical records is needed

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---I support the idea of a social contract for the practice of medicine, as outlined by Gillon et al in their editorial.1 I write particularly from the perspective of surveillance of diseases.

Effective surveillance leaves no option for patients to opt out. That does not mean that patients have to be identified. Equally, no one can be forced to undergo a specific investigation procedure, but in the interests of public health we do need to identify the cause of epidemic diseases and patients are investigated quite specifically for protecting the health of the community rather than for individual patient management. By the system of legally required official notification there is a recognised mechanism for the notification of disease for which contact tracing is generally considered desirable. There are, however, many illnesses for which it is important to know the burden of disease.

In the context of the social . . . [Full text of this article]
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Relevant Article

Wanted: a social contract for the practice of medicine
Raanan Gillon, Roger Higgs, Kenneth Boyd, Brendan Callaghan, and Raymond Hoffenberg
BMJ 2001 323: 64. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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