Living and learning during an ethical crisis in medicine

The Cartwright Report was released at a time of massive ethical change in New Zealand medicine, the shock waves spreading throughout the region as they caught the surge of interest in patient autonomy and patient rights. The mood was as revolutionary for health professionals as the late 1960s and 1970s were for society in general, with many established patterns of practice and everyday expectations about the nature of clinical care being challenged and disrupted. For some of us who witnessed the medico-legal impact of the report in Australasia, it revived memories of our time as medical students when the events reported on were being played out. Looking back now on a time of moral crisis in medicine has lessons to teach us which have a timeless quality about them as they recall the dim distant days of Semmelweiss and other doctors struggling at a political fringe of the profession.