Fiduciary
An ancient Roman legal concept that denotes the transfer of a right from one person to another person with the recipient’s obligation to return the right either at some future time or on the fulfillment of some condition. The fiduciary holds this right as a trustee with the responsibility to exercise the right on another person’s behalf. In surgery, ‘fiduciary obligation’ refers to the trust patients place in their physicians to act in their best interests. The vulnerability acknowledged by the trusting patient creates a fiduciary obligation for the physician who accepts responsibility for the patient’s care.