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What a patient can expect from a consultant psychiatrist

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

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This half-joking remark from the Specialist Adviser to a national mental health charity, sums up the dilemma every consultant faces from time to time: how to be all things to all people. What is more, it tunes in to our own sense of omnipotence. A recent review of ethics in psychiatry (Adshead, 1995) urged consultants to follow the four principles in practice: respect for the autonomy of the patient; beneficence (actively doing good); non-maleficence (avoiding doing harm); and the pursuit of justice – an incontestable but formidable remit.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 1997 

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