Doctor-patient confidentiality and shadowing doctors

http://www.gmc-uk.org/guidance/ethical_guidance/confidentiality.asp

In general, you can talk about cases you saw, as long as you don't say anything so specific that the patient will be easily identifiable. Often there is no need to go into lots of technical detail (as this will only give you opportunities to trip up) but you can give general information to relate a scenario to a question e.g. "I saw a patient who was very frightened about having surgery and the doctor reassured her by doing x, y, or z."

Thanks.

I'm trying to explain what I learnt from shadowing the neurologist but I'm still unsure how much of a particular case I'm allowed to talk about. This particular case really stood out and showed me being a doctor can be very difficult sometimes. I'm wondering if I should just explain that being a doctor can be difficult for so and so reason or actually back it up with this particular case. Unfortunately what happened to him is fairly rare. Should I refrain from mentioning this case at all? What about during an interview? I really want to mention it because it had a lot of impact on me and was a real eye opener but I'm still worried about all the confidentiality issues. :/

Doubt you will be able to spare the characters in a personal statement if you wanted to talk in depth about a particular case. Be general in your statement then elaborate during your interview if the opportunity arises.

Thanks.
It's about two sentences but I probably won't include it if I hit the character limit too soon. The only thing I'm worried about is that his case is kind of rare so I'd imagine that makes it really specific to him. Would I be allowed to mention his case (or any other patient's) during an interview? I really have no idea what I can and can't mention.

Thanks.
It's about two sentences but I probably won't include it if I hit the character limit too soon. The only thing I'm worried about is that his case is kind of rare so I'd imagine that makes it really specific to him. Would I be allowed to mention his case (or any other patient's) during an interview? I really have no idea what I can and can't mention.

Short of the guy being literally the only person in the country to have this condition, i very very much doubt you'll be breaking his confidentiality, even then you wouldn't really be unless you say his name.

Mention the case broadly and how it made you realise being a doc is difficult, there's no need to get into the nitty gritty details.

It doesn't matter - you are still not giving any hint of who he is. Mention it if you want.

That's not necessarily true. Say there are 10 people in the country who have this case, and only one of them lives in Yorkshire and she says that in a Yorkshire hospital she saw a patient with this condition, that could potentially break confidentiality as its unlikely to be any of the other 9.

Still irrelevant. You have not identified him.

How are you going to know mr X has rare disease Y when you see him in the street? You can't. You may know which case study he is AFTER he personally tells you he has a rare disease, but that is not breaking confidentiality! You have not breached his privacy in any way.

Students and doctors and the general public ARE allowed to talk about rare diseases you know - its not censored information

It depends what else in the anecdote I suppose. If you were to say "The person with Y also has Z", and Mr X tells someone else that he has Y, then that someone else could infer that Mr X also has Z from what you've said, again depending on how rare Y is (in that region etc).

That would be in the case study though - by revealing Y he has also revealed Z via a source other than you.

I had assumed but now doubt myself that if a genuinely super rare pathology presented itself, the patient wouldn't be able to deny the publishing of the case study (in confidentiality). I think that is true though. And in any case, if he is that sensitive he presumably won't reveal Y in the first place.

Well, say Y is rare, and Z is common and embarrassing. Say the whole world knows he's the only one with Y in whatever region he lives, then you, having only had experience in that region, say you met a patient who had Y and Z, you've just ratted him out.

Thanks.
It's about two sentences but I probably won't include it if I hit the character limit too soon. The only thing I'm worried about is that his case is kind of rare so I'd imagine that makes it really specific to him. Would I be allowed to mention his case (or any other patient's) during an interview? I really have no idea what I can and can't mention.

I shadowed a neurologist and saw sth rare too

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