The Freedoms of Patienst and the General Good

Patient Privacy Rights and the Related Scientific Research

The medical research and the use of data collected from patients is not a strange phenomenon in the medical field across the globe, with most medical trend and infections or disease being handled and controlled based on the information collected from patients. Mr. Oberman found himself in a dilemma since being a medical practitioner, he had the internal and professional urge to do anything that would contribute to the furthering of medical research and well being of the population in general. Yet on the other hand, being an individual from the society which he treated its members, he felt that their right to privacy and concealing of private information when they so wished nodded to be respected. All his colleagues were against the legislation that restricted the kind of questions that could be asked of a patient and wanted the pregnant women to divulge information on their history of alcohol use among other personal details.

If I were Mr. Oberman, I would definitely join the protest launched by the agency against the new restrictive rules on the grounds that it reversed the gains that had been achieved by the medical fraternity over the years. The information obtained from all clients, not only the p[regnant women is specifically targeted at ensuring the demography of the disease is well traced and studied for the better handling of potential catastrophe that may befall the community or the nation. The restriction of the kind of questions that ca be asked is a way of hindering the unborn infants the chance to get prior treatment and come to birth with little or no symptoms and syndromes related to the alcoholism of the mother. This is retrogressive and against the rights to normal life of the baby in the womb and after birth.

The additional amendments of the legislation that restricts the doctors from asking any further questions apart from the normal birth information is not in good taste since the same legislation had already state that the information will the treated confidentially and indeed Mr. Oberman had been instructed to call and inform all the previous patients of how their information would be stored and what use they would be put into, that is enough precaution as provided by the legislation.