Confidentiality Governing Surgical Research Practice

Abstract

Healthy subjects or patients volunteering to participate in trials expect that their privacy and autonomy will be protected. The aim of this article is to highlight issues related to confidentiality governing surgical research practice. A search of the current relevant literature was undertaken. Consent to the disclosure of any information should be sought wherever practicable, but disclosures should be kept to the minimum necessary. The data should be made anonymous where unidentifiable data serve the purpose. Where the previously described actions are not practicable for various reasons, data may be disclosed for research, provided participants have been given information about access to their records and about their right to object. Personal information may only be disclosed without individual's consent when it is for the protection of the public interest, but this has proved too ambiguous a rubric to be useful without proper clarification. Hampering of noncommercial medical research should also be avoided, as it may cause serious damage to public health. Confidentiality in research is an important issue in the protection of the participants' rights to privacy and autonomy, and it should be considered in the design of each study. Breach of confidentiality is legally justifiable for the sake of the public interest, but proper clarification of the law is required in order to avoid hampering noncommercial medical research that is vital for the public health.

Analysis of the Legal Effect of Settlement Agreements Prepared in Medical Litigation Following Plastic Surgery in Korea

“…Plastic surgery is a medical specialty that is at risk of substantially high malpractice claims 2 . The number of medical disputes inevitably grows as the number of procedures increases.…”

Attitudes of Patients and Their Families Towards Medical Privacy and Competence of Bearer or Receiver of Bad News

“…Medical privacy refers to the practice of maintaining the security and confidentiality of the patient's records by the physician to preserve trust in medical relationships [11,12]. However, the dominant culture and perception of life continue to remain a challenge facing the delivery of medical information in critical cases, such as the disease exacerbation or serious or incurable illnesses [13,14]. Physicians should be accountable for delivering bad news to patients.…”

“…Bad news refers to any information that adversely affects an individual's view of his or her future [14]. It is very difficult to deliver bad news to the patients and it may be associated with unpleasant reactions by them [11][12][13][14]. On the other hand, withholding the treatment process from the patients may create a sense of mistrust towards the medical team and harm their psychological and physical conditions [14][15][16][17][18].…”

“…Although medical ethics reserve patients' rights, in oriental family-centered communities, the family is accountable for deciding for the patient [13,14]. This difference between the western and oriental societies has also been reflected in the literature, but it seems that these differences can be overlapped.…”

Effects of presentation method on the understanding of informed consent

“…1 Sources agree that better communication increases patient satisfaction and in turn can decrease the number of malpractice suits. [2][3][4][5][6] To gain a better understanding of what patients learn from the informed consent discussion, Priluck et al performed a survey of patients undergoing retinal surgery. Their study revealed that while 97% of patients thought the informed consent was satisfactory, only 57% passed a postinformed consent quiz.…”