ABSTRACT
We have all, from time to time, experienced debilitating illness. Many of us have faced serious illness or its possibility, or faced the uncertainties and dangers of pregnancy, or of trauma and so on. Almost without exception on these occasions we have consulted our doctor wanting to know what is wrong with us, or what is the solution to our problem to ensure continued health. We have depended on the doctor’s diagnostic and therapeutic skills and been assured by authoritative answers to our questions. It is not difficult therefore to succumb to the temptation to perceive the doctor as the custodian of a treasury of secure and objective knowledge about us in these extremely important areas of our life. It is also understandable that doctors too will be tempted to think that they can, with some authority, determine what we really need, and be confident of what they are really doing to us in the clinic. But are things as straightforward as this?
