Postgrad Med J 2001;77:512-513
( August )
Review
Ethical, professional, and legal obligations in clinical
practice: a series of discussion topics for postgraduate
medical education
Topic 5: disclosing confidential information
D M Gore
Craigavon Area
Hospital, Northern Ireland
Correspondence to: Mr
D M Gore, Department of Surgery, University of Liverpool, 5th Floor UCD
Building, Daulby Street, Liverpool L69 3GA, UK
dmgore@liverpool.ac.uk
Submitted 24 May 2000;
Accepted 2 August 2000
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
 |
Introduction |
This is the last discussion topic in
a series of five dealing with ethical, professional, and legal
obligations of clinical practice. Junior doctors tend to lack
confidence in these subjects, and thus I organised a series of informal
discussions in our surgical unit on which these discussion articles are
based. The sessions were prepared with reference to non-academic
literature readily available from the General Medical Council and the
medical defence organisations. While our unit dealt with these issues
from a surgical perspective, the obligations of clinical practice apply
to all practitioners and the series could be easily modified for other clinical specialties.
Sometimes the principle of confidentiality
conflicts with ethical, professional, and legal
obligations.
| |
Disclosure to the police |
Policemen are often to be found around hospitals, particularly in
accident and emergency departments. Normally the police have no special
right to be told confidential information in the absence of a court
order under the Police . . . [Full text of this article]
