Peter Jones

Hippocrates’ prescription

The idea of laying out options and leaving the decision to the patient goes against what he stood for

issue 05 November 2016

Doctors are being urged not to tell patients what is best for them but to lay out the options and tell them to get on with it. Hippocrates (5th century BC) would have had his doubts.

A key duty of the ancient doctor was, he said, ‘to help, or at least not to harm’.

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