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Is it ever proper for a medical doctor to lie to his patient? Should he tell a patient he is dying? These questions seem simple enough, but it is not so simple to give a satisfactory answer to them.
医生可以对病人撒谎吗？医生应该告诉病人他已经病入膏肓了吗？这些问题看起来很简单，但是要给出令人满意的回答却并不那么简单。
TO Lie or Not Lie-The Doctor's Dilemma
撒谎还是不撒谎-医生的难题
Sissela Bok
西塞拉·博克
Should doctors ever lie to benefit their patients - to speed recovery or to conceal the approach of death? In medicine as in law, government, and other lines of work, the requirements ofhonesty often seem dwarfed by greater needs: the need to shelter from brutal news or to upholda promise of secrecy; to expose corruption or to promote the public interest.
为了对病人有好处-为了加快病人康复或不让病人知道死亡的来临-医生到底该不该撒谎？医疗行业与法律、政府及其他行业一样，往往显得对诚实与否的问题不那么看重，要紧的倒是另外的一些事情，譬如，应设法避免可怕的消息造成的打击，或是应考虑恪守保密的诺言，或是需要揭露腐败行为或促进公众利益等。
What should doctors say, for example, to a 46-year-old man coming in for a routine physical checkup just before going on vacation with his family who, though he feels in perfect health, is found to have a form of cancer that will cause him to die within six months? Is it bestto tell him the truth? If he asks, should the doctors deny that he is ill, or minimize the gravity of the illness? Should they at least conceal the truth until after the family vacation?
举例说吧。一个46岁的男子，在与家人外出度假之前进行常规体格检查，虽然他自我感觉良好，但医生发现他患了某种癌症，6个月内就会死去。这时，医生该怎么对他讲呢？是不是最好对他讲实话？要是他问起检查结果，医生该不该否认他得了病？该不该将病情的严重性缩小到最低限度？该不该将真情至少隐瞒到他全家度假之后？
