Do No Harm: Perverse Consequences of Misjudging Public Response

摘要

In the health-care world, a physician facing a patient with a perplexing medical problem will sometimes elect to do nothing. The Hippocratic oath, an ethical contract that binds doctors to act humbly and serve the sick, almost universally binds physicians. This covenant predates the US Constitution and Great Britain's Magna Carta-by many centuries. And from The History of Epidemics, which is part of the Hippocratic Corpus, comes the principle to "do no harm." For more than two millennia, physicians have recognized the risk inherent in taking an action, no matter how well intended. Contemporary society has translated the do-no-harm concept into the ironically constructed aphorism, "Don't just do something, stand there!" It is a guiding principle of military strategists and chess players around the world. But this philosophy carries its own risk/reward calculus, no matter how zealously the no-harm Cassandras bemoan the perils of unintended consequences. In doing nothing, you see, one can easily be perceived as uncaring or incapable. No one wants to be that person.