The Nagoya District Court, on May 1989, ruled that doctors could exercise their discretion about whether or not to inform patients that they were suffering from an incurable or grave illness.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, the authors carried out a questionnaire survey of medical students as to whether or not they knew this and what opinions they had about telling the truth to patients with cancer.
There were 502 respondents among 620 students and these were divided into three groups of almost the same number; those who knew of and understood the judgment correctly, those who knew of it but mistook the meaning, and those who did not know of it.
Two thirds of the respondents said that the number of physicians informing the patients of the truth will increase in the future, and that half of them will do so when they become physicians. Those who responded that they would not inform the patients totaled 16 percent.
In cases where a famiy member had cancer, 53 percent of the respondents would not inform a relative unless the patient was aware of his own disease, but 57 percent would if the relative wanted to know the real diagnosis.
Students in the lower classes gave animated opinions about this problem, and those in the upper classes treatd warily as to whether they would inform the patient of the truth or not.