Patient Confidentiality

I am a huge fan of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice. Recently on the last few episodes of Private Practice, one of the doctors is being sued and liable to lose their license for a releasing a book that entailed personal information about one of their clients. One of the clients read the book and decided to sue the doctor for breach of confidentiality. This is one of the few ethical topics, that I disagree with in terms on breach of confidentiality. Within the show, most of the doctors would asked their peers to answer different scenarios. This in my opinion is ok, physicians are merely getting an outside perspective. Each doctor within the business had a different specialty and looked at each case from another view. I feel that once a physician is very deep into their specialty they forget to look at the problem from a different light. Even on the program HOUSE, which has a doctor on there who specializes in solving difficult diagnosis, he still steps outside of his group and ask for other opinions as well.

Back to Private Practice, now while what the doctor decided to do in publishing the book that was still very closely related to her life was wrong. It was wrong for the fact that she was too close to the book and that the events were not that far from past. No one in the book was deceased, so she ran the risk of offending someone who's personal secrets she had kept and now was displaying for the rest of the world for an easy dollar. Most of what she wrote did come back to bite her, when there were losses of clients who worried that their stories would be in the next edition. That right there should have told her that you cannot continue to practice and write, if you are writing about current life events. Now while she make maintain the defense that it was part of her healing process, what doctor in their write mind decides to let every secret in their life out. Her husband on the show made to point time and time again and yet she did not listen. And because of the book, the practice in the end had to shut down to avoid each doctor working there being at risk of losing their license as well.

Choosing Death: When is it Ok?

I choose this topic because by far it is one of the most ethically questioned debates going on today. As a healthcare provider you take an oath to save life to the best of your ability. But what do you do when someone wants to end their life? People have called Dr. Kevorkian a murderer but was he really doing anything wrong? Most of his patients were at the end of their ropes and had nothing to live for and wanted to end their suffering. I wonder why the people who were up in arms could not cope with the fact that someone was ready to leave this planet. I think that’s where the discussion comes from; people in general are afraid of dying and haven’t properly educated themselves nor learned how to cope with the fact that their loved one are not going to be around forever. I think it is especially painful when parents watch their children suffer and leave before them. No parent should ever be in that position but sometimes is happens. I want the best for everyone and I hope that whatever decisions they have made were carefully thought out and not on a whim.
I attended a seminar last night that death with Living Wills and Health Directives and the information made sense. Why leave the choice of whether or not you are to linger on, on this planet when all the signs are telling your loved ones no but they are afraid to pull the plug. Should there be time limits? Yes. Why? Because that way at the end of the day everyone can say that they tried. Everyone always believes that there might some little glimmer of hope and there maybe. But at the end of the day someone has to pay that bill and would you rather your loved ones remember you for the person you were. Or for the giant debt you left them in?

Anthony Weiner: Power and Ethics

When the story of Representative Anthony Weiner first broke, many news channels took the comedic course based on the information at hand. And while I found this very entertaining especially on The Daily Show and The Colbert Report; I couldn't help but wonder, why does this always happen with powerful men. When men are in power whether your shift manager at the local fast food chain or as the President of the United States (cough cough Bill Clinton) they assume the idea that they are untouchable. This is where we find men at one of their weakest points, by assuming that no one will ever turn on them they try once with their potential vice and if they are able to get away with it or cover it up smoothly; they have found something new to play with. So where does power and ethics play into this? For me when a powerful man is doing the exact opposite of what they preach: adultery, gambling, illegal drugs, the list could go on...where do they, as powerful men in their own right draw the line?

Now in the case on Anthony Weiner we could blame just him for what he did. But remember he sent these photos to someone and not just once according to a story on ABC News at least one of these illicit affairs went on for over a month. The women in question claims she didn't know who Weiner was but now is selling her story to the highest bidder. Where do her ethics lay, she doesn't want this to affect her 3 year old daughter and yet she is talking about her story to the public and submitting a photo of herself so that we now who she is and where she is from.

In my opinion both men and women need to be careful with power and be aware of their ethical standards in which they set for themselves. Don't play into the media which has clearly showed us they don't believe in any sort of ethical behavior lately. In fact learn about what is going on the world on your own and make your own opinion. That way you will know where your ethics and values stand.