Physicians can ethically withhold information in situations where full disclosure of a diagnosis or treatment would cause great psychological harm to the patient.
Physicians need to understand when it may be appropriate to let patients get involved in medical decision-making and when it may be necessary to provide their personal medical judgment.
Derrel Zeno, Coreen Domingo, Anh Tran, Frank Martin, Kimberly O'Malley, Paul Haidet, Richard Street, and Carol Ashton
Community education about how patients can best communicate with their physicians has been successful in various communities, particularly when working with an ethnically diverse patient population.