UP Ibalon Bicol: Breach of trust in medical practice: perfume canister incident, MD’s sexual escapades & GMA's breast implant repair

Breach of trust in medical practice: perfume canister incident, MD’s sexual escapades & GMA's breast implant repair

7/15/2009 | Posted by mesiamd | Edit Post

A Sick Child Brought into the Temple of Aesculapius
Oil on canvas, c.1877 by John William Waterhouse (1849-1917)

We have learned a whole lot of errors in the medical profession. Once we read of the hideous perfume canister incident that was videotaped by doctors and nurses in Cebu to humiliate a suffering patient with a foreign body in his butt. Then we heard of that poorly trained plastic surgeon who brandished his bedtime sexual escapades with movie starlets in the You Tube, shocking the entire medical community. Now we have no less than the medical records of Pres. Gloria M. Arroyo (GMA) being pilfered and exposed by unauthorized personnel in the Asian Hospital.

All these are worrisome and paint a picture of an awful trend which tells that the privacy and ethics of the medical profession must be guarded and respected. Pres. Arroyo isn’t so popular, but there is no reason for anyone to break into her privacy. It is embarrassing to learn that in the Philippines, confidential data of the president’s health is easily laid bare by people who have nothing to do with her treatment.

If it were true that a certain Dr. Maria Niza Bermudez-Reyes, a resident trainee in OB-Gyn of Asian Center instructed three medical staff to access Arroyo’s records for reasons outside her line of duty, she violated professional confidentiality.

It could have been tempting and salacious for others like her to know if indeed, Arroyo had breast augmentation and implants decades ago. It could be a source of loose talk if they had them repaired in a hospital in Manila. Information like this could be leaked to make fun, humiliate, and extort money from anyone including the president.

But wherever the truth rests in this alleged violation of patient trust, a stronger safeguard to keep-out unqualified medical personnel must be done. Any wrong-doing must be meted with apt punishment. With the growing use of computers to keep medical records, one can imagine how fast data can travel on the wrong hands.

On the ethical and moral side, healthcare workers must be doubly conscious of the duty they have for those who seek their help and confidence. They have to remember, they too will one day be patients. (Photo Credit: www.mlahanas.de) =0=

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Labels: Aesculapius, Asian Hospital, breach of confidentiality, breast implants, confidence, ethics, Gloria, GMA, implants, medical errors, medical records, morality, Totie Mesia, trust

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Breach of trust in medical practice: perfume canister incident, MD’s sexual escapades & GMA's breast implant repair

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