CONSULTATIONS SHOULD BE PROMOTED.

SEC. 2.-Consultations should be promoted in difficult cases, as they contribute to confidence and more enlarged views of practice.

PUNCTUALITY IN CONSULTATIONS.

SEC. 3. The utmost punctuality should be observed in the visits of physicians when they are to hold consultations, and this is generally practicable, for society has been so considerate as to allow the plea for a professional engagement to take precedence over all others.

NECESSARY DELAYS.

SEC. 4. As professional engagements may sometimes cause delay in attendance, the physician who first arrives should wait for a reasonable time, after which the consultation should be considered as postponed to a new appointment.

GOOD FEELING AND CANDOR IN CONSULTATIONS.

SEC. 5.-In consultations no insincerity, rivalry or envy should be indulged; candor, probity and all due respect should be observed toward the physician in charge of the case.

UNAUTHORIZED STATEMENTS OR DISCUSSIONS.

SEC. 6. No statement or discussion of the case should take place before the patient or

friends, except in the presence of all the physicians attending, or by their common consent; and no opinions or prognostications should be delivered which are not the result of previous deliberation and concurrence.

ATTENDING PHYSICIAN MAY VARY TREATMENT.

SEC. 7.-No decision should restrain the attending physician from making such subsequent variations in the mode of treatment as any unexpected change in the character of the case may demand. But at the next consultation reasons for the variations should be stated. The same privilege, with its obligation, belongs to the consultant when sent for in an emergency during the absence of the family physician.

ATTENDING PHYSICIAN TO PRESCRIBE.

SEC. 8. The attending physician, at any time, may prescribe for the patient; not so the consultant, when alone, except in a case of emergency or when called from a considerable distance. In the first instance the consultant should do what is needed, and in the second should do no more than make an examination of the patient and leave a written opinion, under seal, to be delivered to the attending physician.

DISCUSSIONS IN

CONSULTATION

CONFIDENTIAL.

SEC. 9.-All discussions in consultation should be held as confidential. Neither by words nor by manner should any of the participants in a consultation assert or intimate that any part of the treatment pursued did not receive his assent.

CONFLICTS OF OPINION.

SEC. 10. It may happen that two physicians can not agree in their views of the nature of a case and of the treatment to be pursued. In the event of such disagreement, a third physician should, if practicable, be called in. None but the rarest and most exceptional circumstances would justify the consultant in taking charge of the case. He should not do so merely on the solicitation of the patient or friends.

CONSULTANT TO SCRUPULOUSLY REGARD RIGHTS

OF ATTENDING PHYSICIAN.

SEC. 11.-A physician who is called in consultation should observe the most honorable and scrupulous regard for the character and standing of the attending physician, whose conduct of the case should be justified, as far as can be, consistently with a conscientious regard for truth, and no hint or insinuation

should be thrown out which would impair the confidence reposed in the attending physician.

ARTICLE IV.-DUTIES OF PHYSICIANS IN CASES OF INTERFERENCE.

QUALIFICATIONS THE ONLY BASIS OF PRACTICE. SECTION 1.-Medicine being a liberal profession, those admitted to its ranks should found their expectations of practice especially on the character and extent of their medical education.

INTERCOURSE WITH PATIENTS OF OTHER PHYSICIANS.

SEC. 2.-The physician, in his intercourse with a patient under the care of another physician, should observe the strictest caution and reserve; should give no disingenuous hints relative to the nature and treatment of the patient's disorder, nor should the course of conduct of the physician, directly or indirectly, tend to diminish the trust reposed in the attending physician.

CIRCUMSPECTION AS REGARDS VISITS.

SEC. 3.-The same circumspection should be observed when, from motives of business or friendship, a physician is prompted to visit a person who is under the direction of another

physician. Indeed, such visits should be avoided, except under peculiar circumstances; and when they are made, no inquiries should be instituted relative to the nature of the disease, or the remedies employed, but the topics of conversation should be as foreign to the.case as circumstances will admit.

DUTY AS TO CALLS TO PATIENTS OF OTHER PHY

SICIANS.

SEC. 4.—A physician ought not to take charge of, or prescribe for, a patient who has recently been under the care of another physician, in the same illness, except in case of a sudden emergency, or in consultation with the physician previously in attendance, or when that physician has relinquished the case or has been dismissed in due form.

CRITICISMS TO BE AVOIDED.

SEC. 5. The physician acting in conformity with the preceding section should not make damaging insinuations regarding the practice adopted, and, indeed, should justify it if consistent with truth and probity; for it often happens that patients become dissatisfied when they are not immediately relieved, and, as many diseases are naturally protracted, the