Medical Confidentiality – Quo Vadis?

Confidentiality, as the right to secrecy is nowadays called, applies to information to which health personnel have access while performing their duties. In other words, it is a right of patients to exert control over health information regarding them and keep such information inaccessible to others. Privacy and confidentiality are overlapping concepts. The difference is that the rules covering confidentiality generally place limits on disclosure. Privacy has a broader scope, but – above all – confidentiality is a corollary to the right of privacy.

Abstract:

Since time immemorial, doctors have enjoyed direct and personal relationship with their patients. An assumption of trust has lain at the very heart of their relationship. Patients visit their doctors in the belief that the information they supply to the doctor, or which the doctor finds out about them in the course of examination or treatment, will be kept secret. Most patients feel certain that going to a doctor will not result in an outcome that would have undesirable effects on their lives.

In 400 B.C., the father of medicine, Hippocrates, had placed the principle of secrecy among the most important tenets of medical conduct. Today, most graduating medical students swear to some form of the Oath, assuming an obligation to respect secrecy. Yet, paradoxical as it may sound, the content of the principle is elusive, its interpretation poses many difficulties, while its future perspective remains uncertain.