Medical Ethics: Confidentiality Flashcards

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering key terms, theories, legal cases, and philosophical concepts from the lecture on medical confidentiality featuring Mark Siegler and Kenneth Kipnis.

Decrepit Concept

A term used by Mark Siegler to describe traditional doctor-patient confidentiality, meaning it is old, worn-out, and no longer fits or functions well in modern team-based healthcare.

Mark Siegler

Author of the 1982 article "Confidentiality in Medicine — A Decrepit Concept," who argues that traditional absolute confidentiality is unrealistic in modern healthcare and advocates for preserving key privacy interests through a need-to-know framework.

Kenneth Kipnis

Author of the 2006 article "A Defense of Unqualified Medical Confidentiality," who argues that confidentiality should be an unqualified, absolute professional obligation to preserve patient trust and encourage full disclosure.

Need-to-know

Siegler's proposed framework where access to a patient's medical information is limited strictly to individuals who require specific details to fulfill their legitimate professional roles.

Is-ought distinction

A philosophical principle stating that a descriptive claim about how things are ("is") does not automatically establish a normative claim about how things morally should be ("ought").

Qualified confidentiality

A model of confidentiality that applies generally as a rule but contains recognized exceptions, such as allowing or requiring disclosure to protect a third party from serious harm.

Unqualified confidentiality

A model of confidentiality advocated by Kipnis where confidentiality is maintained as a professional obligation without exceptions based on third-party protection.

The "Infected Spouse" case

A classic case scenario analyzed by Kipnis where a physician must decide whether to preserve confidentiality for an HIV-positive patient named Andrew or break confidentiality to warn his reconciling wife Wilma.

Permission to warn

A legal or ethical discretion where a healthcare professional is allowed to disclose confidential information to protect someone, but is not required to do so.

Duty to warn

A legal or ethical requirement obligating a professional to take reasonable protective steps when a patient poses a serious, foreseeable danger to another person.

Tarasoff v. Regents of the University of California

A 1976 landmark California Supreme Court decision establishing that when a patient poses a serious danger of violence to another, a therapist has a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect the foreseeable victim.

HIPAA

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, whose Privacy Rule regulates specified uses and disclosures of protected health information by covered entities.

HIPAA Facility Directory

A directory maintained by covered hospitals under HIPAA containing limited information (patient's name, location in the facility, and general condition) that may be disclosed unless the patient restricts or opts out.

De-identification

The process of removing specified identifiers from medical records so there is no reasonable basis to identify the individual patient.

Public-health reporting

The mandatory notification of specified infectious diseases or conditions to public-health authorities for population-level surveillance, outbreak control, and contact tracing.

Mandatory reporting

Legal requirements compelling healthcare professionals to disclose specific information to authorities under designated circumstances, such as suspected child abuse.

Confidentiality

A professional obligation to protect information disclosed by a patient in the course of healthcare.

Privacy

A broad concept involving a person's control over personal information, access, and personal boundaries.