Obligaţia morală a onestităţii în practica medicală
The moral obligation of honesty in medical practice

Summary/Abstract: The moral obligation of honesty in medical practice. In the series of professional obligations which are limited to the field of professional ethics and might throw out of gear the doctor-patient relationship by causing various communication difficulties, the physician’s honesty towards his/her own patients represents one of the leading imperatives. Yet, in the contemporary medical practice, the truthful disclosure of relevant medical information can become controversial in cases in which it could negatively impact the patient’s psychological state. By discussing the main grounds of this ethical obligation, within this paper we approach a few model cases in which certain limits to this obligation could be set. By approaching the principle of respecting the patient’s autonomy as the main basis both for the obligation of honesty and for the patients’ right not to learn about the information concerning their medical state, along this paper we argue that each patient’s autonomy stands for one of the limits of the truth-telling in medical practice. Eventually, starting from a brief outline of Romanian patterns of doctor-patient communication, we aim at opening up an analysis upon a recurrent issue in the age of autonomy, that of the relationship between non-disclosure of medical information and paternalism in medical practice.

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