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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 19, 1959)
What Is The Law? This column is prepared so a public service by the College of Law. Willamette University. Salem, to ex plain basic legal principles, not to provide legal advice. The reader is cautioned not to apply these cases to his own problems without an attorney's advice, for dif fering facts may change the outcome. The Law Protects Patient Physician Communications 1 Peter Plaintiff was injured in an automobile accident. A police surgeon called to the scene of the accident saw plaintiff sitting on the side walk. When Plaintiff sued Dan Defendant for damages arising out of the accident, Defedant called the police surgeon as a witness and asKfed him whether he had setfn theopiaintiff spit blood before getting into the ambu lance. Plaintiffs lawyer ob jected to this testimony. The judge had to decide whether fee police surgeon should an swer jhis question or whether 9 there was a rule of law ex cluding this testimony. This problem involves what is known as the patient-physi-sian privilege. -i Most states encourage the utmost confidence between the patient and his physician. In part the Oregon statute provides that "a regular phy sician or surgeon shall not, without the consent of his pa tient, be examined in a civil action, $uit or proceeding, as to any information acquired in attending the patient which ?s necessary to enable him to prescribe or act for the patient." In Scope of Practice The law protects communi cations between physician and patient which are legitimately within the scope of lawful medical practice and does not extend to communications yiade to aid or to commit a crime. Therefore, in court, the re- V Vrt TTTM1 in the life of every family m iii i iii jBHiim 11 . i; mm mi I, vi I teiliBiilii ilBfliiflsSai MS llBl'li'M 5T??yi- assess V 1 V 4 ) v A new arrival . . . ssv - , k a new home . . . a comtortable retirement Join the 23 million Americans who save at associations like ours where their money is safe and earns excellent returns. Current Dividend 4 Per Annum Start a Savings Account Now at tannic J 29 North EDUCATION EXPERIMENT Twenty-two high school and faculty members, all of the International School of America, New York, wave on their arrival in San Francisco. The students, representing nations across the world, are participating in an educational lationship of the physician and the patient must first be established. Generally speak ing, a physician is free to tes tify about matters which he observed or learned about the patient before and after he was professionally involved with him. In the case cited at the be ginning of the article, the Mis a college ---yr-J------ ----AelteVt-Vi'''iaa- mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmW iff 4iL FIRST FEDERAL Savings & Loan Assn. of Hedford Ivy St. Robert F. Kyle, souri court held that if the re lation of physican and patient had been established and that Peter Plaintiff had submitted himself for examination by the police surgeon, then any information acquired by ob servation after that time would not be admissible. But on the other hand, if prior to the establishment of this rela- education . . . Manager experiment by spending their last year in high school touring the world. The globe circling trip was arranged by the U.S. State Department and the American Association for the United Nations. -(UPI Telephoto) tionship the doctor observed the patient and acquired in formation from such observa tion, then the police surgeon should be allowed to answer the question put to him. Death Has No Affect Generally, communications made by a prospective patient to a physician with a view to engaging him would be pro tected even though the physi cian refused to accept the per son as a patient, or the person decided not to engage the physician. Generally, too, the death of the patient does not affect the patient - physician privilege. Last Civil War Vet Plans Party Houston, Tex. -fllPD- Walter "Williams, who says he is the last veteran of the Civil War, looked forward today to a bar becue on his 117th birthday. His daughter, Mrs. Willie Mae Bowles, said he will' be 117 on Nov. 14. He wants a barbecue of ribs and Mrs. Bowles said she will have one the next day, although all her father can do "is nibble at them." Williams recently had pneu monia and it was feared that he would die. But he recover ed arid his daughter said he now has only a slight cold. He lives on soft-boiled eggs, baby food, creamed potatoes, milk and coffee. He probably will never be able to get out of bed again. A Scripps-Howard reporter more than a month ago said, after an investigation, that there was some doubt that Williams is as old as he claims to be or even old enough to have fought in the Civil War. But Gov. Price Daniel of Texas said the official stand of Texas is that Williams is whr.t he says he is. Senator Kennedy Sidesteps Morse Milwaukee, Wis. -fflPD- Sen. John Kennedy Saturday de fended his support of the com promise labor bill passed by Congress and sidestepped a feud with Oregon's . Sen. Wayne Morse. Kennedy arrived in Wiscon sin for a whirlwind six speeches in 14 hours.' Just four days ago, Morse had told a Milwaukee audience that the Massachusetts Dem ocrat let the labor bill pass in order to obtain a "label" for his presidential hopes. The bill, the Oregon Demo crat said, was labor's "worst setback since passage of the Taft-Hartley act." Kennedy replied that the bill which finally emerged from Congress was in the "best interest of labor." He said Morse, had the right to disagree, but 64 other Demo cratic senators supported the position of the - conference committee which he headed. FLOODS HIT MEXICO Mexico City (UPD - Floods caused by 10 days of heavy rain in the south Mexican states of Tabasco and Chiapas have killed at least two per sons and driven 10,000 from their homes,, it was reported today. Public Patience Urged for TV Washington-IUPD-The chair man of the Federal Communi cations Commission said today the public should have "pa tience" with television's growing pains, including fixed quiz shows. John C. Doerfer said it wasn't necessary and perhaps dangerous for the government to step in and tighten its reg ulation of the industry. , "With just a little patience, over a period of time many of the undesirable practices will disappear," he said in a copy righted interview with U.S. News & World Report Mag azine. But Doerfer said it might be a good idea for the TV in dustry to give consideration to establishing its own czar for policing and "raising the level of this creative media." The late Judge K e n e s a w Mountain Landis did the same thing for baseball and Eric Johnston for the movie industry. M.J.B. COFFEE 2-LB. CAN $1.37 M.J.B. INSTANT COFFEE 6 02. JAR GOLD MEDAL FLOUR z. 79 CARNATION CANNED MILK 10 TALL CANS C&H BROWN or POWDERED SUGAR 89' mW Quotes From the News By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL Las Vegas, Nev.-Charles Coburn, 83 to his nervous 41-year-old bride, the former Mrs Winnifred Gean Clements Natzska, during their wedding ceremony: "Calm down. I'm not going to bite you-ai least not very hard." Johnson City, Tex.-Former President Harry S. Truman, denying he has named anyone as the leading crndidate for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination: "I am neutral. But I'll tell you this. I'm going to see a Democrat elected next year." Hollywood - Mrs. Florence Aadland, mother of Errol Flynn's "protegee," Beverly Aadland, disclosing that she has advised her daughter not to attend the actor's funeral: "I doubt if anyone will attend the funeral who really loved Errol." Washington-George W. Taylor, chairman of the presiden tial fact-finding board that tried to settle the steel strike, ad mitting that negotiations had collapsed: "We. find that the differences are of such a nature that it's simply not possible to get a meeting of minds tonight." Junction City Duck Hunter Dies of Attack Junction City - (UPD - Eli S. Moore, 59, Junction City, collapsed and died of an ap parent heart attack while duck hunting along the Wil lamette river east of here early Saturday. GET YOUR KWIN TREASURE MAPS AT YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD BIG Y. LOOK FOR THE BONUS CLUES TOO! PLUS SILVER DOLLAR STAMPS WE RESERVE LIMIT RIGHTS c PRICES GOOD THRU WEDNESDAY OCT. 2 1st c The 10)10 IN c HEAVY WITH SWEET JUICE SWEET EXTRA JUICY Hannover, Germany (UPD -A series of brush fires swept Lower Saxony Sunday, dam aging more than 100 square miles of forest and heathland but causing no known casualties. THE BIG Y'S are the stores that give you M-O-R-E of EVERYTHING Quality . . . Service . . . and Savings! We've all your family's favorite Famous Brand Foods . . . and, we've LOW PRICES by the hundreds 'n hundreds on every shelf and table and in every freezer and display! You get all this plus the speediest checkouts and friendliest service possible! Just one trip will convince you that you get more when you shop our stores! mmf ml IUI I f ll 1. MA ' 411 If Jh T1-N KBt.. f Freshest TOWN TEXAS RED GRAPEFRUIT 3 . 29' SUNKIST GRANGES t Agreement Near On Exchanges Washington -(UPD-The Unit ed States and Russia were re ported near agreement today on a plan to extend and. build up the cultural and scientific exchange program. State Department sources said a team of four negotia tors, would go to Moscow shortly to put the finishing touches on the new program. The present two-year ex change expires Jan. 27, 1960. Officials said both the Unit ed States and Russia had ad vanced new proposals which considerably narrowed points of difference between the two nations. ! As a result, they said, the new plan probably would pro vide for a greater variety of exchanges and involve more people than the expiring pro gram. The current program calls for the United States to send 1,733 persons to the Soviet Union under 129 separate pro jects. Russia would have sent 1,391 to the United States un der 121 projects. 5? ZT ft - rsT mi i i r mm ml M K mm m M tUl . - r NORTH HIGHWAY 99 608 MAIN 5 U. of 0., Porter Invite Lumbermen 77". . : irmn rril tt: sity of Oregon and Rep. Charles O. Porter (D-Ore.) have jointly announced an in vitation to lumbermen throughout Southwest flrpmn. and others interested in the lumber and logging industry oi tne area, to attend a dav- long conference on the univer sity campus here Nov. 2. Meeting space has been oro- vided for the' conference, the. second annual meeting, in the Erb Memorial union. The con ference lasts from 9:30 a.m. until noon and from 2 p.m. until 5 p.m. Canada had 88 pulp and paper companies operating in 1958. We Give GREEN STAMPS CENTRAL REXALL DRUG Main and Central MAIL TRIBUNE, Medford, Or. Monday, Oct. 19, 1959 'C w mm mjMri m Ml m I m EAST STREET 11th AND OAKDALE