Medical doctors were yesterday urged to resist inappropriate requests from their patients that could cause them to breach the Medical Association of Jamaica’s (MAJ’s) code of ethics.

In an address to the MAJ’s annual general meeting at the Knutsford Court Hotel in Kingston, Dr Errol Daley, a former president of the association, defined inappropriate requests as those that challenge the patient/doctor relationship and may require the clinician to use deception to meet the needs of the patient.

“Do not simply write the prescription because the patient asks for it,” Dr Daley urged his colleagues. “Complying with a request for inappropriate medical intervention involves blatant deception on the part of the physician.”

Dr Daley’s comments come in the wake of a judge warning jurors last week against the practice of using doctors’ certificates as excuses not to serve as jurors when subpoenaed by

the court.

However, Dr Alverston Bailey, immediate past-president of the MAJ, in a response to the judge’s warning, emphasised that the MAJ requires all physicians to exercise “due care” in the issuance of all sick leave certificates, being always cognisant of the potential patient who might feign illness.

Yesterday, Dr Daley said doctors are obligated to respect patients’ values, but patients are not entitled to any medical intervention of their choosing. Additionally, he said while there are practice guidelines for doctors to follow, there are some instances for which there are no guidelines and so the doctors must use their own discretion.

“We use practice guidelines, and this is why as doctors we have to remind ourselves that we have individual patients to deal with and each of them have individual issues and we have to deal with them appropriately,” he said.

Dr Daley also warned doctors against the common practice of writing prescriptions for other persons at the request of

a patient.

“We must not concede to requests to write prescriptions in the name of others, even relatives, and/or care for patients utilising insurance for others,” he said, adding that doctors engage in the practice innocently. “It is insurance fraud, and we can go to prison for it.”

Noting that doctors find it easier to say yes to some inappropriate requests, he encouraged them to remind patients that this practice is against the law and that he or she cannot disobey the law regardless of how minor the request may seem.