[Medical Association Application: Mary M. Henry, MD] Page: 2 of 6
This text is part of the collection entitled: Rescuing Texas History, 2014 and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.
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Report of Committee on Medical Ethics
1. We desire to commend for the guidance of the members of this Society "Principles of Medical
Ethics" adopted by the House of Delegates of the American Medical Association at its New Orleans
meeting, and especially that portion of it embraced in Article 1, Section 7, pages 11 and 12, of the
last edition of the same, as follows: "Sec. 7.-It is incompatible with honorable standing in the
profession to resort to public advertisement or private cards inviting the attention of persons affected
with particular diseases; to promise radical cures; to publish cases or operations in the daily prints, or
to suffer such publication to be made; to invite laymen (other than relatives who may desire to be at
hand) to be present at operations; to boast of cures and remedies; to adduce certificates of skill and
success, or to employ any of the other methods of charlatans."
2. Inasmuch as newspaper advertising of all kinds has long been a matter of questionable propriety,
and inasmuch as there is an ever need of educating the public to discriminate between regular and
irregular physicians (charlatans); and inasmuch as newspaper advertising by physicians has become
almost synomynous with quackery, your committee is unanimous in the opinion that this form of
securing publicity should be avoided by members of this society just as far as possible. We believe
it is neither compatible with the dignity of the profession nor polite to use the columns of the lay
press for any other purpose than to announce changes in location of office or in the firm or partner-
ship or to give information of the return of a physician to his office, after a more or less protracted
absence from it. To be more specific on this point, the committee recommends that these notices should
be as brief as possible, and in no event should extend over a longer period than ten days. In the event
that absence should be only of a few days' duration, the announcement should be omitted from the
paper altogether. It will be noticed from this that the carrying of a display or other advertisement in
any secular newspaper or other publication calculated to circulate among the laity is considered bad
form, and is to be construed as a direct violation of the Principals of Medical Ethics.
3. A physician's sign at his residence should contain only his name, his medical title, and, if
he has consultation hours at that place, these may be stated. The sign at his office should contain
name, title, and office hours, and, if a specialist, it may state to what branches his work is limited.
If he pays particular attention to certain diseases, but does not limit his practice to these, this fact
must be omitted. He may have stationery conveying such information as is embraced in the signs
aforesaid, but no other. Of course it goes without saying that advertisements on menu cards, opera
house programs, hotel rooms or offices, and other places of like character, is absolutely inimical to
the proper construction of the Principles of Medical Ethics. We recommend that this society take
no notice of those men who so far place themselves outside the pale respectability and honesty as
to employ directly or indirectly agents or other representatives, such as strikers on trains, hotel and
boarding house proprietors and employers, bookagents and other to solicit business.
4. This committee recommends that the advertising of private sanitariums or hospitals in secular
papers, be considered a violation of medical ethics, and not in accord with the spirit of this resoluton,
and that such advertisement should be confined to the medical press exclusively. Sec. 4. And even
in the medical press such advertisement should be :o worded as to advertise the merits of the institu-
tion and not the attainments of its medicat or su._,ical staff.
5. The publication of the name of any physician by a newspaper in connection with reports of
sensational news items is greatly to be deplored. This committee recommends that the Secretary of
this society be instructed to request every newspaper published in this country, to refrain from the
use of the names of the members of this society in such connection.
6. It shall be considered contrary to the spirit of the code for a physician to allow himself to
be interviewed with reference to a distinguished patient with whom he may be connected as medical
adviser. If such a patient be dangerously ill, and he be in the care of two or more physicians, and it
be evident that the state of the patient's health is demanded by the public, such information may be
given out in the form of a bulletin, signed by the medical attendant and his consulting physicians.
7. And it is further recommended by this committee that these resolutions be printed, together
with the by-laws of the society, and also be printed upon and constitute a part of the application blanks
supplied by this society, and that the Board of Censors use these resolutions as a guide in passing
upon applications for membership in this Society, and that when an applicant has signed one of these
blanks it shall be regarded as an approval on his part of the above resolutions.
Signed:
W. B. RUSS, Chairman,
E. V. DePEW,
W. A. KING,
M. GUGGAN,
A. C. McDANIE-L.Annlinion for Membershin
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Bexar County Medical Society. [Medical Association Application: Mary M. Henry, MD], text, 1934~; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth586719/m1/2/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting University of Texas Health Science Center Libraries.