Investigates, Discovers, Questions

This week: The Doctors' Code

Should parents of a girl of 15 be told that she asked to be put on the pill? Should a criminal who seeks help from a doctor be reported to the police? Should cancer patients be told they are being used in experiments? Should employers be shown the medical records of employees?

Every day doctors, nurses and administrators have to make difficult ethical decisions. In the past they have often jealously maintained that they are the only people qualified to make these judgments.

But now the British Medical Association has published an ' ethical-handbook' available to patients, and has invited Man Alive to debate these dilemmas with those who face them, and those who are affected by them. Nick Ross questions members of the profession and Harold Williamson talks to patients and their families.