Question

Forum Week 1 - law and ethics

Question:

Please watch the video privacy and confidentiality and answer the questions below (use your book, the video and the internet as resources):

1. What are the differences between law and ethics?
2. How is confidentially part of Ethics?
3. If you have potentially breached any ethical guidelines, what does the state use as a reference to review your action and make their decision on any action against you?

Answer 1

Ans) The differences between them are these: Legal standards are based on written law, while ethical standards are based on human rights and wrongs. Something can be legal but not ethical. Legal standards are written by government officials, while ethical standards are written by societal norms.

- Trust is an essential part of the doctor-patient relationship and confidentiality is central to this. Doctors are under both ethical and legal duties to protect patients' personal information from improper disclosure. But appropriate information sharing is an essential part of the provision of safe and effective care.

Confidentiality is a duty and based on virtue ethics which Islam insists on; maintaining data privacy and confidentiality is the key virtue for trust building in physician-patient relationship. The patient's concern about keeping confidentiality has drastic impact on their trust.

- Breach of patient confidentiality consequences can include a sizeable award for damages and a loss of reputation for a doctor or healthcare clinic. To guard against these types of breach of patient confidentiality consequences, many healthcare businesses purchase malpractice insurance.

- Understanding the Medical Ethics Issues. Patients have a right to expect that their private medical information will be kept confidential. In this interaction, a physician was ultimately responsible for a confidentiality breach — an ethically and legally inappropriate action.