The Primum non nocere reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Primum non nocere

Primum non nocere is a Latin phrase that is based on the Hippocratic Corpus: it means "First, do no harm." The phrase is sometimes recorded as primum nil nocere.

Interpretations

A narrow interpretation of primum non nocere would throw away all modern pharmacology, since it is known that no drug, synthetic or natural, is devoid of side effects, and therefore prescriptions in one sense may do harm.

Physicians, however, have long dismissed this interpretation as unhelpful: medication that carries the side effect of a headache but that has the proven ability to cure life-threatening disease is perhaps mandatory, in the patient's best interest. Medication that carries serious side effects complicates matters. There have been frequent legal arguments where primum non nocere has been invoked on both sides of an argument: is risking some serious and permanent side effects a greater harm to the patient than leaving them untreated with a serious disease? Some medications, notably accutane, are known to have significant side effects, but the known consequences of not using them are also severe.

Relevance

Medical doctors still and always have a legal and ethical obligation to act in the patient's best interest.

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