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Report of Committee on Medical Ethics..
1. We desire to commend for the guidance of the members of this society "Principles of
Medical Ethics" adopted by the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association at its
New Orleans meeting, and especially that portion of it embraced in Article 1, Section 7, pages
11 and 12, of the last edition of the same, as follows: "Sec. 7.-It is incompatible with honorable
standing in the profession to resort to public advertisement or private cards inviting the ;at-
tention of persons affected with particluar diseases; to promise radical cures; to publish cases
or operations in the daily prints, or to suffer such publication to be made: to invite laymen
(other than relatives who may desire to be at hand) to be present at operations; to boast of
cures and remedies; to adduce certificates of skill and success, or to employ any of the other
methods of charlatans."
2. Inasmuch as newspaper advertising of all kinds has long been a matter of questionable
propriety, and inasmuch as there is an ever need of educating the public to discriminate between
regular and irregular physicians (charlatans) ; and inasmuch as newspaper advertising by
physicians has become almost synomynous with quackery, your committee is unanimous in the
opinion that this form of securing publicity should be avoided by members of this society just
as far as possible. We believe it is neither compatible w ith the dignity of the profession
nor polite to use the columns of the lay press for any other purpose than to announce changes
in location of office or in the firm or partnership or to give information of the return of a
physician to his office, after a more or less protracted absence from it. To be more specific or
this point, the committee recommends that these notices should be as brief as possible, and iin
no event should extend over a longer period than ten days. In the event that absence should
be only of a few days' duration, the announcement should be omitted from the paper altogether.
It will be noticed from this that the carrying of a display or other advertisement in any secular
newspaper or other publication calculated to circulate among the laity is considered bad form,
and is to be construed as a direct violation of the Principles of Medical Ethics.
3. A physician's sign at his residence should contain only his name, his medical title, and,
if he has consultation hours at that place, these may be stated. The sign at his office should
contain name, title, and office hours, and, if a specialist, it may state to what branches his work
is limited. If he pays particular attention to certain diseases, but does not limit his practice
to these, this fact must be omitted. He may have stationery conveying such information as is
embraced in the signs aforesaid, but no other. Of course it goes without saying that advertise-
ments on menu cards, opera house programs, hotel rooms or offices, and other places of like
character, is absolutely inimical to the proper construction of the Principles of Medical Ethics.
We recommend that this society take no notice of those men who so far place themselves outside
the pale of respectability and honesty as to employ directly or indirectly agents or other repre-
sentatives, such as strikers on trains, hotel and boarding house proprietors and employers, hack
drivers, bartenders, book agents and others to solicit business.
4. This committee recommends that the advertising of private sanitariums or hospitals in
secular papers, be considered a violation of medical ethics, and not in accord with the spirit of
this resolution, and that such advertisements should be confined to the medical press exclusively.
Sec. 4. And even in the medical press such advertisement should be so worded as to advertise
the merits of the institution and not the attainments of its medical or surgical staff.
5. The publication of the name of any physician by a newspaper in connection with reports
of sensational news items is greatly to be deplored. This committee recommends that the
Secretary of this society be instructed to request every newspaper published in this country, to
refrain from the use of the names of the members of this society in such connection.
G. It shall be considered contrary to the spirit of the code for a physician to allow himself to
be interviewed with reference to a distinguished patient with whom he may be connected as
medical adviser. If such a patient be dangerously ill, and he be in the care of two or more
physicians, and it be evident that the state of the patient's health is demanded by the public,
such information may be given out in the form of a bulletin, signed by the medical attendant and
his consulting physicians.
7. And it is further recommended by this committee that these resolutions be printed, to-
gether with the by-laws of the society, and also be printed upon and constitute a part of tle
application blanks supplied by this society, and that the Board of Censors use these resoluios
us ,i guide in passing upon applications for membership in this Society, and that when an
applicant has signed one of these blanis it shall be regarded as an approval on his part of the
above resolutions.
Signed:
W. B. RUSS, Chairman,
E. V. DePEW,
W. A. KING,
\1. DUGGAN,
A. C. McDANIEL.
Arnlication for _MnembershiD