说谎还是不说谎医生的难题.docx

Unit
Warm-Up
Questions
Is it even right to tell a lie?
Do you always want to be told the truth, no matter how unplea may slip into deceptive practices that that they assume will “do no harm” and may well help their patients. They may prescribe innumerable placebos, sound more encouraging than the facts warrant, and distort grave news, especially to the incurably ill and the dying.
But the illusory nature of the benefits such deception is meant to produce is now coning to be documented. Studies show that, contrary to the belief of many physicians, an overwhelming majority of patients do want to be told the truth, even about grave illness, and feel betrayed when they learn that they have been misled. We are also learning that truthful information, humanely conveyed, helps patients cope with illness; help them tolerate pain better, need less medicine, and even recover faster after surgery.
Not only do lies not provide the “help” hoped for by advocates of benevolent deception; they invade the autonomy of patients and render them unable to make informed choices concerning their own health, including the choice of whether to be a patient in the first place. We are becoming increasingly aware of all that can befall patients in the course of their illness when information is denied or distorted.
Dying patients especially — who are easiest to mislead and most often kept in the da