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I would like to clear up some misconceptions in the post appended below, and
also provide a continuing medical education update on how today's doctors can
detect and certify whether a person is a smoker or not.
Codes of medical ethics prescribed by medical councils and associations around
the world permit, and in many cases, advise physicians on how to actively
participate in bringing about change in public policy and business practices by
taking up medically related social causes. Please see for example the following
ethics code of the American Medical Association, the principal medical
organization of all American physicians:
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/physician-resources/medical-ethics/code-medical-ethics/opinion9025.page
Please note that it states the following in advising doctors on how to
ethically participate in "Advocacy for Change in Law and Policy":
QUOTE
Physicians may participate in individual acts, grassroots activities, or
legally permissible collective action to advocate for change, as provided for
in the AMA’s Principles of Medical Ethics.
UNQUOTE
....AMA Code of Medical Ethics
QUOTE
Physicians and physicians-in-training should press for needed reforms through
the use of informational campaigns, non-disruptive public demonstrations,
lobbying and publicity campaigns, and collective negotiation, or other options
that do not jeopardize the health of patients or compromise patient care.
Physicians are free to decide whether participation in advocacy activities is
in patients’ best interests. Colleagues should not unduly influence or pressure
them to participate nor should they punish them, overtly or covertly, for
deciding whether or not to participate.
UNQUOTE.
...AMA Code of Medical Ethics
As far as smoking is concerned, a physician today can certify whether a person
is a smoker or non-smoker by performing simple blood, urine, saliva and/or hair
sample tests for nicotine or cotinine, a metabolite of nicotine. Here is a
description of these tests:
http://labtestsonline.org/understanding/analytes/nicotine/tab/test
Cheers,
Santosh
Ferdinando Falcao wrote:
RESPONSE : There are
doctors who have taken up social causes, political causes and business causes
too. There is a vast difference between advising a person to quit smoking,
discouraging and arm twisting. Layman do not know about medical ethics unless
something really wrong is done. But if a doctor who has taken the oath does not
know the meaning of the oath taken, it is unacceptable. So it for a person of
the medical profession to point this out and not some “nobody regards this as
unethical”. Secondly, doctors are considered to be knowledgeable, and to advise
a difference between smokers and non-smokers is exposing the limitations of
one’s knowledge. Can any doctor certify that a particular person is a
non-smoker? Let us cite this same example of LIC. What procedure will be
followed to know if a person is a non-smoker? Is it not just a medical
check-up? A heavy smoker may be detected, what about the others? So ultimately
it is the patient’s history that will be recorded. So why all this “pokeleo
fuguett” like the politicians?
Dr. Ferdinando dos Reis Falcão.
