Abstract

To omit the word kindness in medical practice and journals, in favour of fashionable notions such as "care" and "skills", is not in patients' interests. Health professionals may come to the view that natural kindness (the same as that found in the world outside medicine), because it is absent by name in medical skills courses' or other official edicts, is somehow unscientific and unworthy of their attention. As lay-people know, it is an essential adjunct to all medical management, sometimes the only one required, and by no means always a time-taking matter. And so its use by name in journals, and its actual use in practice, is here recommended. It is a supreme medical ally.