Sissela Bok's Lying: Moral Choice In Public And Private Life

“Benevolent deception” is a typical practice where doctors purposely mask important information from their patients for the patients’ own benefit. Doctors will restrain information because “they believed it was best not to confuse or upset patients with frightening terms they might not understand, like cancer” (Skloot, 2010, 2011, p. 63). In The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, doctors withheld crucial information from Henrietta, and overall left her in the unknown. Lacks had to frequently make trips to John Hopkins because of her constant discomforts and pains, and she had no clue what was causing it.

Sofia’s Case Study”), withholding seemingly necessary and vital information from a patient is in fact ethical. However, this might be one of the rarer cases in medical ethics. The

Or he could keep the secret and let the innocent stranger continue to be charged for something they did not do and let the patient live their life like nothing happened. But, if the doctor chooses The Rights Approach and resolves the situation with what option will best respect all people who have a stake, they are still doing harm. The doctor could keep the secret between him and the patient and that lets the innocent person stay in jail and the patient and doctor are now both living with the guilt of knowing. Or, the doctor could tell authority and get the innocent person out of trouble and let the patient be convicted for the crime they really committed. Whichever approach of ethics the doctor chooses to take will do harm to someone and wont follow the Hippocratic

Theses steps are imperative to maintaining the patient’s privacy. When disclosing

By communicating effectively and sharing information, practitioners can ensure that the individual receives a coordinated and comprehensive care. Confidentiality is maintained by respecting the privacy of individuals, not sharing their personal information without their consent and ensuring that all records are kept securely. This is important to protect the rights of individuals and maintain

The physician is rendering the aid the patient requests and respecting the patient’s autonomous decision to exercise their right to

A moral dilemma that arises in a doctor-patient relationship is whether or not the doctor should always tell their patient the truth about their health. Although withholding information was a common practice in the past, in today’s world, patient autonomy is more important than paternalism. Many still are asking if it is ever morally permissible for a doctor to lie to a patient, though. David C. Thomasma writes that truth-telling is important as a right, a utility, and a kindness, but other values may be more important in certain instances. The truth is a right because respect for the person demands it.

In Joseph Collins article, “Should Doctors Tell the Truth?” he states that doctors shouldn’t tell the truth to their patients that deals with their life and death. Collins argued that doctor should withhold the truth on any circumstances. For example, when Collins blamed himself because of the death of a lawyer who suffered from kidney disease, only if he had lied to the lawyer about his health issue, the lawyer still could have been alive. However, I believe that doctors should always tell the truth to their patients regardless of the circumstances because withholding information violates patient’s autonomy and harms the doctor-patient relationship.

According to Skloot doctors practiced “benevolent deception” this allowed for doctors to deny the patients fundamental information about their health, some doctors would withhold diagnosis from patients all together (Skloot, 2010, p.63). The doctors justified this type of practice

In Chapter 4, David Thomasa speaks about truth telling and how it becomes an important key factor in a clinical setting. “In each of the three main reasons why the truth must be told, as a right, an utility, and a kindness, lurk values that may from time to time become important than the truth.” (Vaughn 155,2017). By saying telling the truth is a right, he implies that it is a way of showing respect to another person. If the physician and patient experiences reversed roles, I would expect them to want the physician to be honest with them as well.

In “Should Doctors Tell the Truth,” Joseph Collins presents an argument for why in some cases a physician lying to a patient is a justifiable action, as lying in some cases serves to benefit the patient’s health. Though a physician may certainly be justified in lying to a patient in some cases, Collins’ presentations of justifiable examples of lying do not demonstrate a dedication to achieve or to understand the patient’s best interest. Rather, Collins advocates for a model of the doctor-patient relationship that does not extend consideration to the patient’s autonomy nor to the patient’s expectation of privacy in order to form a paternalistic strategy of treating patients. Moreover, Collins’ position is not normative as it operates on knowledge that cannot be attained preemptively and relies on moral luck for its justification. Collins supports his argument for the moral permissibility of lying to patients by describing an interaction with his friend on a golf course.

In this case study the primary nurse, Amelia Wilkerson, is caring for a patient, Katy Palmer who has recently been admitted to the hospital for fatigue and abnormal lab counts. The patient asks Amelia for information regarding her diagnosis. Amelia has seen Katy’s results and knows that she has been diagnosed with acute myelogenous leukemia. The ethical dilemma seen in this situation is that it is outside of the scope of practice for Amelia to discuss Katy’s original diagnosis with her.

If we as nurses respect the confidentiality of a patient, we should do so for all the patients. However, Griffith (2007) argues that the duty of confidence should not be absolute and nurses should always consider sharing information if required. Though the principle of respecting patient autonomy and their right to confidentiality is broken here, the principle of beneficence and non-maleficence is uphold. Nurses have an obligation to protect patient’s confidentiality but the duty to warn an innocent party of imminent harm is far more critical. Therefore, breaking confidentiality here is potentially doing more good than

Indeed, patients have a right to know the accurate information they need under contemporary medical ethics. In fact, it is a fundamental tenant of contemporary medical ethics

Truth telling and confidentiality depend upon the situations. It is right to tell the truth in certain but it is also right to hide something from the patients in certain situations. According to utilitarianism one should usually tell the truth and keep one’s promise because you should always perform an action that provides maximum utility and if keeping a promise and telling the truth makes someone happy then it is providing maximum utility.