Abstract

In the course of his practice a physician receives communications of a confidential and personal nature from his patients much like those made to spouses, attorneys and priests. Because of the importance to successful treatment of full knowledge about the patient, the ethics of the medical profession encourage full and frank disclosure of anything which might enable the physician to treat the patient by imposing a duty of non-disclosure upon the physician. But such communication to the physician should not be considered forever sacrosanct; there comes a time when disclosure is of utmost importance, i.e. when a suit is brought in which the condition of the patient is put in issue. The dispensation of justice in a court of law is dependent so entirely upon the ability of the court to elicit from the litigants all of the relevant facts that any limitation on the admission of evidence lessens the possibility of arriving at a fair and just decision. The physician-patient privilege is such a limitation on the admission of evidence in that the patient-plaintiff can refuse to allow the testimony of his attending physician to be admitted in evidence. This comment is directed to the problem surrounding the waiver of this privilege and the necessity for a change in the Arizona law.

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