The medicine I practiced between 1974 to 1992 is gone. Evidence is the coin of the realm in the courts of modern medicine. The rule “first, do no harm” demands a corollary — be paranoid.
We receive extensive training and licensure to “touch” patients. Any person who is not a physician who cuts into another person commits a very serious crime. The same is true for merely talking with a person, whether or not a patient, as a physician. Physicians, with words, go where no others are permitted to go.
Here is the legal yardstick: Conduct that benefits the patient and is necessary is “within” bounds. Conduct that benefits the physician and does not advance patient care is “out of bounds.” The fact that there were no money charges is immaterial. The physician-patient relationship is sacrosanct, boxed by this rule: patient benefit.
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