pregnant while taking these drugs and the effect on the developing fetus. Most of the problems occurred in the first trimester and with neural tube development so that it was likely that the pregnancy would be almost past that stage of development before it was discovered. In psychiatry there is no terminal disease that patients must be told about, however, we get many patients who have been diagnosed and informed in other areas andneed a place to discuss thoughts, feelings, and plans. Many patients are grateful that they are able to make plans and get areas of their lives in order (for example, to write a will) and to work through their own feelings of mortality after been told of their diagnosis-prognosis. In fact many areas of the hospital are employing staff just to meet the needs of these patients. At the present time we have tests that can predict the probability of developing a disease many years ahead, for example the test for Huntington's Chorea. Some patients may will not want to take the test, fearing that perhaps the test result is positive, and they have to live for the rest of their life knowing that for the rest of their life. In this age of cloning and gene splicing it is very important to have a truthful relationship established between the patient and the health care provider. However, James Drane points out that " to become a truthful person we have to struggle first to know the truth. Then we have to struggle with personal prejudices that can distort any information we gather. We have to try to be objective." (4) He ends his powerful paper saying " Finally, to tell the truth is not to deny hope. Hope and truth and even friendship and love are all part of an ethics of caring to the end." (5)How are we to apply these ethical concepts to our daily practice? Nurses must bevigilant regarding how our thoughts, attitudes, actions, and interventions may impact not only the well-being of our patients but the society at la...
