I’ve been in the Navy for 19 years, and since the beginning my primary job has been as a Hospital Corpsman (HM the equivalent to an Army Medic). From the time that I finished HM “A” school (basic medical training), I’ve always known that I had to protect the privacy of my patients. In the HM pledge, each of us took an oath “ to hold all personal matters pertaining to the private lives of my patients in strict confidence” (Military Authority, 2015). So as you can see, from the start of my career as a health care professional, the privacy of my patients has always been important. But what happens when the patient’s privacy goes against the ethical and morals values of the health care provider, or if the patient is involved in illegal practices
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The American Medical Association’s (AMA) code of ethics says that “physicians shall safeguard patient privacy and confidentiality within the strain of the law” (Schleiter, 2009). This leads me to believe that as long as the patent has not committed a crime or is suspicious of a crime, that a physicians are not at liberty ti share their patins information. In addition, the American Nurses Association (ANA) states that “quality patient care depends on patients trusting their health care provider” (American Nurses Association, 2015). Patients must have confidence that information shared privately will be held between then and their medical treatment …show more content…
One in particular involved a patient who presented in the Emergency Room and complained of lose a small amount of an illegal substance in one of her body cavities. The question was whether or not the physician should breach confidentiality and report the patient to the authorities (Pauls, McRea, Campbell and Dungey, 2004). If the physician asked himself the above mention question, what would be the answer? We can assume that the drug addict we leave the Emergency Room and find more drugs, but could the physician identify a particular group of people that these person would go out and harm. Sure drugs are a problem in our communities and our morals and ethical values implore us all to do something about them, but health care providers cannot breach confidentially based on morals or ethics. Therefore just as we mentioned early, unless there was a specific group of people that he knew would be harmed by this patient, the doctor couldn’t ethically breach patient confidently. In our example the doctor performed an examination and found no drugs, so he treated the patient and released
The American Medical Association’s (AMA) code of ethics says that “physicians shall safeguard patient privacy and confidentiality within the strain of the law” (Schleiter, 2009). This leads me to believe that as long as the patent has not committed a crime or is suspicious of a crime, that a physicians are not at liberty ti share their patins information. In addition, the American Nurses Association (ANA) states that “quality patient care depends on patients trusting their health care provider” (American Nurses Association, 2015). Patients must have confidence that information shared privately will be held between then and their medical treatment …show more content…
One in particular involved a patient who presented in the Emergency Room and complained of lose a small amount of an illegal substance in one of her body cavities. The question was whether or not the physician should breach confidentiality and report the patient to the authorities (Pauls, McRea, Campbell and Dungey, 2004). If the physician asked himself the above mention question, what would be the answer? We can assume that the drug addict we leave the Emergency Room and find more drugs, but could the physician identify a particular group of people that these person would go out and harm. Sure drugs are a problem in our communities and our morals and ethical values implore us all to do something about them, but health care providers cannot breach confidentially based on morals or ethics. Therefore just as we mentioned early, unless there was a specific group of people that he knew would be harmed by this patient, the doctor couldn’t ethically breach patient confidently. In our example the doctor performed an examination and found no drugs, so he treated the patient and released