PHYSICIAN KEEPING THE TRUTH FROM A PATIENT Israel Bettan
QUESTION: As a physician I know that in being truthful with my patients I retain their confidence as well as my own self-respect. But it is not always possible for me to disclose all I know or have reason to suspect. I feel at times that the interest of my patient is better served if [ withhold from him information of a shocking nature.
Having lived all my life in religious surroundings, I have often wondered what Jewish religion has to say on the subject. Am I ever justified, on religious grounds, in keeping the truth from my patients?*
ANSWER: Our ancient teachers, from whose utterances we draw deep draughts of wisdom even today, often voiced the conviction that religion was the handmaid rather than the lord of life. They held, for example, that with the exception of a number of vital negative commandments, the injunction to live in accord with the law precluded any situation in which complete obedience might prove perilous to life and health(Sifra, Lev. 18:5).
It is not strange, therefore, to hear these pious men express the view that in order to preserve peaceful relations among men, the bare truth may be given an appropriate disguise. In fact, they discover that on one occasion God Himself, to forestall any possible discord between Abraham and Sarah, deviated from the line of strict veracity(Yevamot 65b).
This general attitude finds embodiment in some legal enactments of the Rabbis . We are enjoined, for example, from apprising a sick
s family, lest the mental rukh, Yoreh Deah 337). f his sins is in order, ful tone and in an bed formula reads: inued to live;
person of the death of a close member of hi disturbance aggravate his condition(Shulhan A Again, when one is about to die, and confession 0 he shall be summoned to this last rite in a hopel atmosphere free from any display of grief. The prescri "Many men, after having made their final confession, cont