Honesty, candour, and transparency: clinical implications.

In advance of a medical conference on the duty of candour for medical ethics educators, this paper discusses the duty of candour as a significant development in the culture of medicine. Those who teach medical ethics need to assess its implications for their own practice. It is also a duty that needs to be critically examined in light of both patients' interests and clinical work environments if it is to be practical and not meaningless rhetoric. Two examples of ways in which that critical examination might take place are outlined.