You're on to something, but have it slightly backwards. "First, do no harm." Physicians, at least in Western medicine, are bound to the principle of non-malef

You're on to something, but have it slightly backwards. "First, do no harm." Physicians, at least in Western medicine, are bound to the principle of non-maleficence. Their obligation is to take the approach (by action or inaction) that does the least harm to most people, NOT what helps the most people. This is an important, but subtle distinction. This principle prevents, e.g. administration of a treatment that would cure 51 of 100 patients of a chronic but not debilitating condition while killing the other 49. It's hard to imagine the quantifiable positive ill of telling someone something in person that they'd rather receive in email. But the underlying principle here is not in helping as many as possible but, overall, hurting as few.