This is the Cato Daily podcast for Tuesday, February 25th, 2025.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Physicians have in recent years become more respectful of the preferences, privacy,

and agency of their patients.

Cops aren't quite so respectful, even when asking physicians to violate their oaths in pursuit of law enforcement goals.

Cato's Jeff Singer and Mike Fox explain how the incentives differ between the two groups and why it matters so much that physicians stand up for patients when the cops come knocking.

Jeff, if you don't mind, the United States has a not great history when it comes to people being

treated by physicians without their consent. Yes, that's true. In fact, in my forthcoming book, Your Body, Your Health Care, I talk about how what is right

now considered dogma among doctors, a mantra, she's a better word, that you need to respect

a patient's autonomy, that you can't do a test procedure or treat them without their

informed consent, and you must respect their refusal, even if you think they're making a

terrible mistake because they're autonomous individuals. That's actually relatively recent.

In fact, it wasn't until maybe 50 years ago that that started becoming the ethics that were

being taught to medical students.

In the early part of the 20th century, it was commonplace for doctors to basically do whatever

they thought was in their patient's best interest, regardless of what the patient thought

about it.

They were very paternalistic.

As recently as the 1970s, even a survey of a cancer

specialist found that the majority of them would not tell their patients the entire diagnosis

and prognosis because they were afraid they wouldn't participate well in the treatment plan.

So this is a relatively new thing. But right now, everybody graduating

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