ABSTRACT
Every clinical consultation touches on issues which could be of ethical concern. The medical profession is subjected to outside scrutiny and control as never before. In the interests of patients and in their own best interests, clinicians are obliged to shoulder an unfamiliar responsibility. This chapter considers the historical evolution of the role of the specialist in internal medicine, the physician. Underneath runs a current of complaint about lack of humanism in medicine and about neglect of the psychosocial dimension of the clinical consultation, objection to what J. Katz refers to as 'the silent world of doctor and patient'. The clinician's ethical responsibility to practise efficiently in the modern era, to deploy technology skilfully and wisely, to communicate better with patients and to support them seems straightforward. If the proper study of 'mankind' is 'man', then the proper study of the clinician is clinical practice.
