Patient’s rights to their information Patients have traditionally expected doctors/nurses to keep their secrets and to maintain silence regarding their confidential information. For example, clause ten of the US Code of Ethics for nurses states that nurses, midwives and health visitors must protect all confidential information concerning patients and clients obtained in the course of professional practice and make disclosures only with consent, where required by the order of a court or where you can justify disclosure in the wider public interest (Warnock 1627).
There is often a great deal of misunderstanding about what is to be regarded as confidential information, and it may cause anxiety to health care professionals and even to lawyers. The object of confidentiality is: a) To respect the wishes of the person who imparted the confidence to you in that it was entrusted to you to facilitate care and treatment and for no other purpose. b) In the wider interests of the profession, to ensure that patients/ clients will continue to impart sensitive and confidential information to medical practitioners (where considered necessary (Mattson & Brann 337).
If doctors/nurses break that obligation of keeping the confidentiality, they may be disciplined by their professional body and find themselves defendants in an action in a court of law for breach of confidence. Doctor-nurse-patient relationships are not uniformly confidential.
The Term Paper on A Nurse’s Guide to Professional Boundaries
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A closer look needs to be given to the nature of the doctor- nurse-patient relationship to pinpoint those areas which are confidential and those which are not. This is not a task which should be left to a court to determine on each occasion on which a patient decides that he does not want his medical records produced. For a patient in such a situation to have to bring a separate action seeking an injunction would also at the very least be highly wasteful of resources. If such a reform is needed, and if the confidential nature of the doctor- nurse- patient relationship warrants protection, then some thought should also be given to the impact which such protection might have on different areas of litigation, and some broad policy decisions may be required. Ad hoc judicial development, it is submitted, is not an adequate substitute for such an enquiry. Works Cited Donahue, M.
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