Physicians Behavior from the Perspective of Al-Ruhawi in the Book “Adab-al-Tabib”

Writing treatises and books on ethics and morality is one of the most important topics in medicine history. Teaching and learning medical knowledge and skills was a common one in the golden age of science in Islam, too. The scholars of that period considered the ethical points of view as an important fact in their medical profession. The present article reports the behavior and ethics of physicians based on the review on the first book in this field, "Adab al-Tabib". This book, which can be called the Encyclopedia of Medical Ethics, represents standpoints of the prominent Islamic scholar, Ishaq bin Ali Al-Ruhawi. In this paper, it was intended to summarize the main points of professional behavior and ethics among physicians. Due to the wide-ranging and comprehensive nature of the book, only a few pertinent topics were reviewed. Those topics include the necessity and concept of politeness; the behavior and commitment of physicians towards themselves, patients and society as well as the behavior of nurses, attendees and tips on how to train and examine medical and pharmacy students. Al-Ruhawi in this book, declares that the first necessity of medicine is the true faith and belief in God and the doctors are the guardians of the body and soul. Commitment to medical education, nurses and pharmacists’ role in the management process, physicians’ communication skills suggesting of learning other sciences such as philosophy and more important point, strong relationship of body and soul, are the strengths of Adab-al-Tabib that Ruhawi intended to improve quality of medical services by reviewing them.