9 research outputs found
Respecting patient intimacy
Indexación: Web of Science; Scielo.Transparency as a general rule for all our professional acts casts doubts about the statement of the Hippocratic Oath that says "Whatever I see or hear in the lives of my patients, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private". Medical secrecy protects the intimacy of patients, who reveal to their physicians their most hidden secrets aiming to recover their health. Therefore, physicians should receive those secrets with reverence and care, as servers and not as their owners. The values associated with the respect for personal intimacy are the anthropological basis of medical confidentiality. A medical act is performed by definition between two equally honorable individuals. Therefore, the professional honors the trust of his patient, maintaining strict confidence of what is revealed. Therefore, medical secrecy must be strengthened rather than weakened, pursuing common wealth and dignity.http://ref.scielo.org/cf3mx
Algunas amenazas actuales a la confidencialidad en medicina
Social, technical and legal conditions of the current practice of medicine
make it necessary to insist on certain actions and circumstances that may
jeopardize the confidentiality of information, offered by patients to their
health providers. Therefore, some effects of the current Chilean law are
analyzed in this respect, regarding access to data from the clinical record
of a patient. Also, the risks of putting certain data on social networking
sites are analyzed, as well as some of its effects on clinical practice. The
reasons because of mandatory reporting of diseases, meaning danger to
public health, is allowed, are mentioned. We also discuss the difficulties
involved in managing the results of preventative health screenings and its
knowledge by third parties, as well as some possible violations of personal
privacy, regarding dissemination of some people health information and
its further mention or figuration in mass media. We conclude that it is a
must for both physicians and other health team members, to safeguard
confidentiality of data to which they have had access, as well as the need to
know the relevant law, in order to respect human dignity of patients, each
one as a person. We address the attention to the possibility that, practicing
in a different way, it could endanger the reliability of clinical records, also
impairing the quality of people’s health care.
(Rev Med Chile 2015; 143: 358-366)
Key words: Access to Information; Confidentiality; Information Dissemination;
Medical Records; Social Networkin
An ethical and medical perspective on the voluntary termination of pregnancy
Indexación: Web of Science; Scielo.“Voluntary termination of pregnancy” can refer to actions intended to make a delivery easier, to provide medical care to the fetus, or to protect the life or health of the mother. All of these are proper medical actions and are by definition voluntary. In other cases, the expression denotes a termination of pregnancy before the embryo or fetus is viable, leading to the death of the latter. This action is constitutive of abortion under current Chilean law. The product of conception living being, who develops in the womb during pregnancy, is an individual, both in the sense that it is different from its mother and father, and in that it is a biological individual. For these reasons, such living being constitutes another patient in itself. The free and voluntary medical action of health care professionals is geared toward disease prevention or health recovery and medical terminations of pregnancy, as distinguished from abortion, are not criminalized in our country. Therefore, the idea of legalizing abortive terminations of pregnancy so that they become “legitimate health care services” is a call to the medical community, which should engage in a debate about the meaning and consequences of an eventual mandate of the State that would be at odds with the Hippocratic tradition. A woman can feel that her health is at risk due to her pregnancy, and she certainly has the right to request medical help. Health professionals should care both at the medical and emotional level for all those who require their services, especially when such persons are undergoing situations of vulnerability and distress. When requested to perform an abortion, the physician faces dilemmas that should be addressed in line with the present state of the medical art.http://ref.scielo.org/c4ypf
Some current threats to confidentiality in medicine Algunas amenazas actuales a la confidencialidad en medicina
© 2015, Rev Med Chile. All rights reserved. Social, technical and legal conditions of the current practice of medicine make it necessary to insist on certain actions and circumstances that may jeopardize the confidentiality of information, offered by patients to their health providers. Therefore, some effects of the current Chilean law are analyzed in this respect, regarding access to data from the clinical record of a patient. Also, the risks of putting certain data on social networking sites are analyzed, as well as some of its effects on clinical practice. The reasons because of mandatory reporting of diseases, meaning danger to public health, is allowed, are mentioned. We also discuss the difficulties involved in managing the results of preventative health screenings and its knowledge by third parties, as well as some possible violations of personal privacy, regarding dissemination of some people health information and its further mention or figuration in mass media. We conclude t