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The Pros And Cons Of A Medical Proxy

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Assuming the role as a medical proxy is a challenging role to undertake, disclosing private medical information to family members without the explicit permission from the patient should only be done in a situation of urgent, and absolute need to know. Otherwise you must respect a patient’s privacy and withhold information, even from immediate family. Medical information can be extremely sensitive and thus is usually kept private from family members. Information regarding past surgeries or medical procedures is not medically necessary to disclose to family under any circumstance. As the proxy, it is the most ethical decision to keep any information not directly relevant to the situation at hand completely private. According to consequentialism, you must act to maximize the happiness and minimize pain involved with a behavior - you may make family members happy by answering their long wondered about questions regarding the patient, but the harm you do to the patient themselves far outweighs the happiness created. …show more content…

Libertarianism would suggest that, since you are unable to know for certain what the patient’s wishes are regarding the sharing of information, you should air on the side of caution and completely avoid sharing anything with their family. By doing this, you aren’t infringing on the patient’s right to liberty. If the patient felt that their past medical history was of importance and worth sharing, it is safe to assume that they would have done so. Based on this assumption, it is ethical to withhold any and all medical history that does not relate to their current medical

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