The Student Room Group
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>

Dentistry Ethical questions

Anyone know any ethical questions that might come up in a dental interview and ways to answer/approach them?
Thanks
Reply 1
Avatar for Kartace
Kartace
16
Patient comes in and you perform a routine check up, upon examination you notice some punched out purple lesions on the palatal mucosa which may or may not be consistent with kaposis sarcoma, you suspect this may be caused by an underlying HIV infection and decide to refer the patient to oral medicine for investigation.

The results return and the patient is seropositive for HIV. The patient is told, but requests that his partner is not made aware of this diagnosis. However, you believe that this person intends to continue routine sexual activity with their partner and not inform them of their HIV status.

Who is your duty of care to, the patient and their confidentiality? Or the partner and their medical health?
Original post by madhadiya
Anyone know any ethical questions that might come up in a dental interview and ways to answer/approach them?
Thanks

Confidentiality, whistle blowing. Also more general questions of principle may come up e.g should teeth whitening be allowed on the NHS.
A good way to prepare is to read up on basic medical ethics and then if you are asked a question and not sure of the answer, you can at least reference your answer to your knowledge of ethics.
Original post by Kartace
Patient comes in and you perform a routine check up, upon examination you notice some punched out purple lesions on the palatal mucosa which may or may not be consistent with kaposis sarcoma, you suspect this may be caused by an underlying HIV infection and decide to refer the patient to oral medicine for investigation.

The results return and the patient is seropositive for HIV. The patient is told, but requests that his partner is not made aware of this diagnosis. However, you believe that this person intends to continue routine sexual activity with their partner and not inform them of their HIV status.

Who is your duty of care to, the patient and their confidentiality? Or the partner and their medical health?

As a dentist, i cannot disclose patient's health history to anyone without patient's consent( Confidentiality in maintaining patient record). If patient refuse to give consent, i will look for legal options in order to terminate patient and dentist relationship. What do you think about it?
Original post by Kartace
Patient comes in and you perform a routine check up, upon examination you notice some punched out purple lesions on the palatal mucosa which may or may not be consistent with kaposis sarcoma, you suspect this may be caused by an underlying HIV infection and decide to refer the patient to oral medicine for investigation.

The results return and the patient is seropositive for HIV. The patient is told, but requests that his partner is not made aware of this diagnosis. However, you believe that this person intends to continue routine sexual activity with their partner and not inform them of their HIV status.

Who is your duty of care to, the patient and their confidentiality? Or the partner and their medical health?


I really doubt youd get this as a question!

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you