What is not true about the patient mentioned in the beginning? [originaltext]F:

F: Doctor Smith, today I’d like to ask you about the fact of lying of doctors.
M: It’s actually quite common in this field.
F: Can you give me an example?
M: Well, one of the patients, he came in for a routine physical checkup just before going on vacation with his family. Though he feels in perfect health, we’ve found that he has a form of cancer that will cause him to die within six months. He is only 46 years old!
F: Poor thing. Does he know it?
M: No. And that’s worrying me. I mean it’s best to let him know. But there is also the need to conceal this brutal news, or at 1 east we should conceal the truth until after the family vacation.
F: What do you usually do under such circumstances?
M: We often see important reasons to lie for the patient’s own sake; in our eyes, such lies differ from self-serving ones. We doctors sincerely believe that the seriously ill people do not want to know the truth about their condition, and informing them risks destroying their hope, so that they recover more slowly, or deteriorate faster, perhaps even commit suicide.
F: But isn’t this sometimes dangerous? I mean dying patients especially can’t make decisions about the end of life: about whether or not they should enter a hospital, or have surgery; about where and with whom they should spend their remaining time; about how they should bring their affairs to a close and take leave.
M: What you’ve said, I admit, is also reasonable. But not only in medicine, but in other professions like in law, government, or the social sciences as well, people may find themselves repeatedly in difficulty where serious consequences seem avoidable only through deception.