Ethical Decisions: Making a Hard Call

Confidentiality breaches can lead to mistrust and people not disclosing all of their pertinent information. Many theories can be utilized to make ethical decisions and to identify alternatives to ethical dilemmas that can cause confidentiality breaches. Ethics committees are essential to view a variety of viewpoints and collaborate with others for the well-being of patients and the critical information divulged.

Ethical implications of a breach of confidentiality can range from mistrust at a personal level up to the level as a profession. According to the American Medical Association (n.d.) a breach of confidentiality is a disclosure to a third party, without patient consent or court order, of private information that the physician or nurse has learned within the patient-physician or nurse relationship. Disclosure can be oral or written, by telephone or fax, or electronically, for example, via e-mail or health information networks (Patient, n.d.). Keeping this information confidential helps the nurse or physician keep the trust of the patient. Keeping the trust enables full disclosure of health history, behavior, and risk factors. If trust is lost, communication diminishes and treatment, diagnosis’s, and care suffer and potentially can mislead the health care worker down the wrong mode of thinking. Also, breaching confidentiality can lead to a big mistrust of the health profession as a whole. Americans rating the honesty and ethical standards of professions placed nursing at the top of the December 2011 Gallup Poll at 84%, second on the list was pharmacists at 73%, and third on the list were doctors at 70% (Jones, n.d.). Losing trust and credibility will destroy the view, from the public, of the upstanding ethical values we...

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