Treating oneself or a member of one’s own family poses several challenges for physicians, including concerns about professional objectivity, patient autonomy, and informed consent.
Physicians individually and collectively share the obligation to ensure that the care patients receive is safe, effective, patient centered, timely, efficient, and equitable.
Opinion 2.1.1Informed consent to medical treatment is fundamental in both ethics and law. Patients have the right to receive information and ask questions about recommended treatments so that they can make well-considered decisions about care.
Opinion 2.2.2Physicians have a responsibility to protect the confidentiality of minor patients, within certain limits. In some jurisdictions, the law permits unemancipated minors to request and receive confidential services relating to: contraception, pregnancy testing, prenatal care, delivery services and care to prevent, diagnose, or treat sexually transmitted disease, substance use disorders, or mental illness.
Opinion 2.2.3In many jurisdictions, unemancipated minors are not permitted to request or receive abortion services without their parents’ (or guardian’s) knowledge and consent. As such, when minors seek abortion care, this may create a conflict between the value of confidentiality and the legal obligation to obtain parental consent.
Opinion 3.1.1Respecting patient privacy is a fundamental expression of respect for patient autonomy and a prerequisite for trust. Patient privacy includes personal space (physical privacy), personal data (informational privacy), personal choices, including cultural and religious affiliations (decisional privacy), and personal relationships with family members and other intimates (associational privacy). Physicians must seek to protect patient privacy in all settings to the greatest extent possible.
Opinion 3.2.1Physicians have an ethical obligation to preserve the confidentiality of information gathered in association with the care of the patient. With rare exceptions, patients are entitled to decide whether and to whom their personal health information is disclosed.
Opinion 10.3Physicians must recognize that providing medical care for a fellow professional can pose special challenges for objectivity, open exchange of information, privacy and confidentiality, and informed consent. Physicians have the same fundamental ethical obligations when treating peers as when treating any other patient.