Mary Terrell White, PhD and Katherine L. Cauley, PhD
Students who take international electives must be sensitive to the impact of their presence and to possible risks to patients' safety and their own, and must ask whether their motives for going abroad are overly self-serving.
When a dual relationship exists between a physician and a patient, the physician has an obligation to put the patient's health first even at the risk of ending the personal relationship.
Physicians who encounter a patient who is suffering from depression may find it necessary to breach confidentiality and patient autonomy in order to act in the best interest of the patient.
In a case where a physician is treating two related patients, he should weigh the harm done by breaking one patient's confidentiality against the harm that patient may inflict on another if that confidentiality is preserved.
Research is critical to the development of public policy as it relates to the need for expedited therapy for the partners of patients with a sexually transmitted disease.