I mean wouldn't the take away here be that withholding treatment to a degree is reasonable? While it may be cruel to do so taking intermediate measures to observe the patient/moloch would I imagine greatly alter the treatment and dialogue needed. And, even after doing so if the physician fails I would argue a change in methodology would be prompted to be better following the example if a better disguised giant came not fully trusting the patient.

Moloch/Hermit were unreliable narrators of their own condition and like all other medicine should take their opinions in stride not disregarded or ignoring them but exploring and verifying. Disregarding the giant killing him and bringing out the hermit is wrong for it will crush him in their lack of empathy for something different, as for pure compassion well we see how it played out.

I do believe the Healer was wrong in his methodology, however feeling guilt/quitting would only prevent helping someone else and shouldn't need to, mistakes happen it is up to them to grow and learn from it.

If a perfect giant came and you tried to explore what was wrong with them but couldn't trust your conclusions then its by your digression by risk assessment. How will the treatment help? Will it kill them? Is it permanent? The healer may have informed the giant of the risks but he himself wasn't sure of the outcome for a giant or if the risks were correctly portrayed due to his unfamiliarity which was overall bad practice of wanting to help and doing more harm then good.

Ultimately blind compassion and a distrust of the patient are the wrong answers and finding a fine line between them seems right to me. rant over ggs