Medical ethics--fact or fiction?

In recent times the ethical behaviour of doctors has come under close scrutiny with some unhappy consequences. During the millennia in which medicine has been practised much has been written about ethics and nowadays there is no shortage of codes and declarations and of ethics committees to tell us what to do. These events raise questions about the status of the general principles of ethics and of the significance of particular assertions in that field. There is also the important question of whether or not there has been, or is, any connection at all between utterances about medical ethics and the behaviour of the members of our profession. I believe that the ethical problems confronting doctors are becoming more complex, and give my two rules of thumb for proper behaviour.