Should Medical Advisement Be Legal?

19. According to the utilitarians, the beneficial consequences of maintaining patient confidentiality include the following:

Currently, most people generally accept a doctor’s word as truth and do not question him or her. When it comes to the medical field, patients can often feel overwhelmed by all the confusing medical terms being thrown at them, so they tend to sit back and do as the doctor says. Healthcare professionals sometimes take advantage of this fact and withhold important information from their patients. For instance, a study conducted by Lisa Lezzoni, MD, and her peers states that more than half of physicians lied to their patients about their diagnosis to put a more positive spin on it (Lezzoni, Rao, DesRoches, Vogeli, and Campbell). Healthcare professionals should disclose to the patient any information pertaining to the patient.

To argue the first premise, he appeals to common knowledge that doctors hold their occupations because they are more knowledgeable in a medical context on the options for improving health and longevity. With this in mind, he then establishes that individuals who consult physicians do so in order to prolong their life and improve their well-being. By establishing these foundational premises for paternalism in a medical context, Goldman can now argue that given a patient that is determined to be acting out of line with his true values and his actions might result in harm that is severe, certain, and irreversible, it is the physician’s professional to override the patients’ immediate rights in order to preserve that patients’ more long-term desires. But how can the physician determine whether the patient is acting in line with his true values in the case of withholding medical information from the patient?

The ethical footing in the professional-patient relationship, is vulnerable and requires protection. In Case 2: Nondisclosure of Prostate Cancer, truth-telling is selective. Why would a doctor be justified in lying to his patient? Doctors usually filter out, all sorts of information they deem irrelevant. In this case, the doctor lied to his patient. The doctor based this on the patient’s history of psychiatric disease. The more true information I have, the better I understand my position, and the more able I will be to make sensible judgments about what to do next.Dishonesty can consist of saying something, staying silent, doing something, or doing nothing at all. A healthcare professional to mislead a patient must constitute a violation of that patient’s autonomy. Patients don’t know how the body preforms in health and disease, which causes inaccurate ideas of what’s going on.

Critical Discussion In Should Doctors Tell the Truth, Collins’ believes that every physician should not tell patients the truth. I disagree with Collin’s argument because I am going to argue that physician’s should be ethical and tell the truth to their patients. Collins’ reasons for his argument come from is two premises which are that patients do not want to hear the truth, and if someone does not want the truth then you should not force it on them. My reasons for my counter-argument come from my premises which are that patients want to her the truth, and telling the truth is being ethical.

(2) There is no reason to justify withholding anyone’s medical diagnosis form them, it is not justified morally and ethically. It is unethical and immoral especially from a doctor’s standpoint because his/her oath is to protect and treat no matter what the

Although Immanuel Kant believes truth should be always be told despite the circumstances, is it really in the best interest of the patient in a medical setting? Physicians have a duty to the patient to take care of their wellbeing and that is why they take the Hippocratic Oath. Sometimes you have to be wishy washy with the truth, but only when it is in the interest of the patient and it depends case by case. Bad news can cause a patient to feel hopeless, fearful, and depressive which may cause other problems in any procedure. Kant also argues that confidentiality gives the patient autonomy and self-determination. Full disclosure would help the patient understand the severity of the case and thus, make better decisions in regards to their health.

In this paper, I will discuss the principles that permit disclosure of protected health information with or without the patient’s consent for each of the four categories, government agencies, legal agencies or representatives and research groups. I will also state whether I feel privacy safeguards are adequate to support those principles.

Today, physicians still recite the Hippocratic Oath as a reminder of what the expectations are and what they’re accountable to, also with HIPAA being a fully forced regulation within the healthcare industry, confidentiality is of the utmost importance. Moreover, beneficence which promotes the “measures to benefit the sick” and nonmaleficence will keep the patient “from harm and injustice” (McWay, 2014).

The main focus of the article is to look at the absolute value of patients’ confidentiality. Blightman et al. look at the pros and cones of breaking patient’s confidentiality and conclude that a breached of confidentiality is in order when it is necessary to obtain consent, as required by law, or when it is in the best interest of the public. The article is useful to my subject, since it examines in details the main issues involving the safeguard of patients’ information. In addition, the authors define confidential information, looks at breaching confidentiality for consent, audits, protection of children, disclosure to family and friends, statutory disclosure, prevention of crime, public interest, public safety, public health, and disclosure to the media. The paper publication is Continuing Education in Anaesthesia, Critical Care & Pain, which s a joint publication of the British Journal of Anaesthesia and The Royal College of Anaesthetists in the UK. It is also the official journal of The Faculty of Pain Medicine and The College of Anaesthetists of Ireland. Publication in such an esteemed journal requires utterly scrutinized of reliability and credibility of the information provided. I found the article educational and thorough in its coverage of aspects of breach of patient information. It is also well written and easy to understand.

“Professional integrity derives its substance from the fundamental goals or mission of the profession” (Wakin, 1996, para. 15). Meaning to say, individuals seek for a professional’s valued and ethical advice to which the professional holds their responsibility to maintain and exceeds the level of their expertise. For example, a general practitioner will treat a variety of patients, from all different walks of life with a plethora of different problems. It is their duty to diagnose and treat the patient to the best of their professional ability without prejudice. Another aspect of their duties is the principle of patient confidentiality. Medical professionals are legally bound to not divulge any information provided to them by their patients.

The doctors know that the patients wouldn’t appreciate them disclosing personal information such as sicknesses, income issues, even the conversations they have in the office/patient’s room. People trust doctors to keep them healthy and rely on them to help them rather than talking about them outside of the hospital disclosing information that should not be disclosed. “Applying the evidence-based CPM theory, developed over the last 35 years and dedicated to studying disclosure phenomenon, to disclosing medical mistakes potentially has the ability to reshape thinking about the error disclosure process” (Helft/Child 2013). We differentiate relationships by how much we disclose to them because sometimes remaining private is best for the relationship. “The balance of privacy and disclosure has meaning because it is vital to the way we manage our relationships” (Class lecture, P. Schrodt, March 24).

When applying for a job, most interviewers require a background check on the applicant in order to ensure that they’re hiring the prime person for the job. This should be the same for a patient who is trying to find the best medical practitioner to fit their needs. When a patient is choosing who will be in charge of their health, it should be based on an informed and educated opinion in order to receive treatment from someone they’re comfortable with. In order to become comfortable with their doctor, the general public agree that they need some background information in order to be aware of who is treating them. People generally will choose a doctor based on their qualifications over personal issues, but a questionnaire sent to a sample of patients had 93% of respondents agreeing that “patients should always be informed if they have been treated by an infectious health care worker, even if the risk was very small.” (Blatchford). If such a large percentage of patients demand the right to be aware of their doctor’s health, then it should be obligatory for the health care worker to release the information. Even if healthcare workers

Privacy and confidentiality are basic rights in our society. Safeguarding those rights, with respect to an individual’s personal health information, is our ethical and legal obligation as health care providers. Doing so in today’s health care environment is increasingly challenging (OJIN, 2005).

Truthfulness is a fundamental moral value within a society. Truth telling is considered as an important responsibility in health care field. Doctors should not lie to patients in their role of medical profession. However, some medical professionals believe that physicians should tell lies to benefit their patients.(Toscani , Maestroni &Farsides, 2006).According to Sissella Bok (2007) physicians should not lie because truth telling assists patients to deal with illness in many positive ways. It helps to deal with the illness, manage pain better, and recover faster after an illness (p489). My opinion doctors should tell truth to patients because it respects them as persons, improves public confidence, and