ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author attempts, by examining the explanations and comments of doctors, to decipher the ethical positions they purport to hold and the justifications they give for their behaviour, and to discover what mechanisms their practices of providing or not providing information to patients are objectively based on. The majority of doctors agree that not everything should be revealed to a patient. They set certain limits to this information and apply conditions to its provision. The diagnosis and the prognosis are two distinct stages in the overall process of making statements concerning the afflictions of patients. The information that doctors give patients is extremely variable and concerns as much the diagnosis as the prognosis or the proposed treatments and their expected effects, adverse side-effects or risks. Information concerning the risks ofa treatment is also more willingly given to patients with a socio-cultural level deemed to be compatible.
