Makenzie Doubek joins Ethics Talk to discuss her article, coauthored with Scott J. Schweikart: “Why Should Physicians Care About What Law Says About Turfing and Dumping Patients?”
Amy Barnhorst, MD, Garen Wintemute, MD, MPH, and Marian E. Betz, MD, MPH
When mandatory reporting of risk of violence is not required, physicians should balance patient autonomy and beneficence with patient and public safety.
AMA J Ethics. 2018;20(1):29-35. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2018.20.1.ecas1-1801.
A survey suggests that there is broad consensus among physicians about the importance of honesty with patients, but there is variation in physicians' behavior in disclosing certain information to patients.
Instead of trying to reduce the number of people who have access to a patient's medical record by quarantining information, hospitals should explain the current meaning of confidentiality to patients as part of the informed consent process.
Because maintaining strict confidentiality is often untenable, or even illegal, determining the extent of protections in the postmortem context ultimately entails a weighing of the various interests at stake.