Ethics: the study of the general nature of morals and of specific moral choices; the rules or standards governing the conduct of the members of a profession.
American Heritage Dictionary, 1994
In my residency, we were aware of the ethics of medicine. Specifically, we knew that it was inappropriate to discuss patient information in public. Physicians of my generation, like those who came before and have followed, have generally strived to maintain this age-old tenet of the practice of medicine. We knew this from having learned the following section of the Hippocratic Oath (Fifth century B.C.):
What I may see or hear in the course of the treatment or even outside of the treatment in regard to the life of men, which on no account one must spread abroad, I will keep to myself holding such things shameful to be spoken about.1
Or we know it from the simplified...