As ethics is an incredibly important part of medicine it should be in place for all our decisions, so is lying to a patient acceptable and is misleading better than lying?

In general it is unacceptable to lie to patients according to the GMC, honesty must tried to be upheld and maintained wherever possible. In extreme circumstances lying may be permissible in order to protect the patient such as in safeguarding issues. Protecting patients must be in the heart of all your decisions and so acts such as lying must be taken apprehensively and only in rare cases if that's the best way to protect a patient. The idea of misleading is more of a subjective one and it relies on personal opinion. However, alike lying misleading should still only be used in circumstances when necessary to not erode the trust between doctors and patients and their doctor-patient relationship. Misleading by some may be seen to be more acceptable as it is not actually lying as it includes often correct information, however some may see that misleading has the same intention of lying and so has the same ends and so is still not appropriate unless in extreme circumstances.