A Plea by Grover Cleveland for a Greater
Degree of Confidence Between
Physician and Patient.
Our only living ex-President, Mr. Cleveland, gave a bit of advice to the
doctors a few weeks ago. Speaking before the New York State Medical
Society, in session at Albany, he pleaded the rights of the patient to
know what his physician was doing to him. He humorously represented
himself as attorney for the great army of patients in their appeal to the
powerful minority of doctors:
In all seriousness I desire to concede without the least
reservation on behalf of the great army of patients that
they owe to the medical profession a debt of gratitude which
they can never repay, on account of hard, self-sacrificing
work done for their benefit and for beneficent results
accomplished in their interest.
But at the same time we are inclined to insist that while
our doctors have wonderfully advanced in all that increases
the usefulness and nobility of their profession, this thing
has not happened without some corresponding advance in the
intelligent thought and ready information of their patients
along the same lines.
We have come to think of ourselves as worthy of confidence
in the treatment of our ailments, and we believe if this was
accorded to us in greater measure it would be better for the
treatment and better for us. We do not claim that we should
be called in consultation in all our illnesses, but we would
be glad to have a little more explanation of the things done
to us.