Question

Scenario: A patient with no known next of kin was undergoing an open-chest surgical procedure under general anesthesia. During the procedure, the surgeon accidentally cuts his finger with the scalpel and his open wound was exposed to the patient's blood. It was unknown at the time whether the patient was HIV positive.

Does the physician have any legal right to order HIV testing of the patient's blood immediately, without the patient's consent, so that he knows whether he has been exposed to the HIV virus?

What are the legal or ethical issues involved in making such a decision?

If you were the hospital counselor administrator and were presented with this issue, what would you advise in order to limit the hospital’s liability?

Answer 1

Explanation:

As consent is required from the patient to do medical procedure since, hospital and doctor need obtain in every case, patient needs to be informed for the particular surgeries, test, treatment or any organ donation or any other medical procedure. Doctor need to obtain the consent of patient when patient come in normal state and state him proper scenario as doctor does not have any legal right to perform HIV test for patient without his consent, if doctor perform the blood test without the consent of patient that it would be unethical act and can also bring legal charges against doctor and hospital for doing that test without consent of patient as per health care laws.

• As the duty of counselor administrator, in order to reduce and save hospital from any legal trouble doctor should be instructed to wait until patient come to consciousness and could approve the test with legal procedures.