I mean I can tell my lawyer if I committed a crime and it’s attorney client privilege. I can tell my wife or husband and we are protected not to squeal on each other. Same thing about telling a priest it is privileged information. How come a nurse or doctor is required to report it. I mean non of the above are life and death but a confession from a patient should be privileged in my opinion why is it not? Like if a person says they use meth or whatever, we really don’t report it. But if he get’s in a wreck and only causes himself or herself injury why are we to report it to the police does not HIPPA cover this?
A lawyer is considered an extension of your (legal) self. The reason is that if your lawyer can be compelled to talk about your private communications, then a client won’t actually get a fair trial, as they needed that lawyer aware of everything to defend them properly, but if prosecution could just call your lawyer to the stand and go “did they do it?”, no one would tell lawyers anything incriminating.
Your spouse is also considered to be part of you, legally. You have a right to confide in them, they are part of your life.
Same for a priest, many religions require confessions and have religious consequences for not confessing or a priest telling what they heard. The right for them protects them from being forced to break religious rules, although notably this one doesn’t exist everywhere.
Nurses and doctors are covered in the same way, actually. Revealing your medical information improperly is a HIPAA violation.
Aside from spousal privilege, all of these relate to their job. Your lawyer defends you, your priest hears your confessions, your doctors and nurses treat you. If you tell your priest about your heart condition and your lawyer about your blaspheming against god and your doctor about that time you murdered a man back in '03, then no privilege protects you at all.
That last paragraph, especially, explains it so well. It’s very important to know to whom, when, where, why, how, and to what extent one should talk about a particular subject.
That seems like a lot of work. I’ll just continue not telling anybody anything.
What if I told the man I murdered in '03 that I blasphemed my wife to my lawyer, and that’s why I murdered him, to keep him from telling my priest?
It depends on whether the man you murdered in '03 was a doctor
He was my therapist.
In that case, you should ask Tarantino for points on the back end.
Then you’ve killed the man you told and the court will have a terribly difficult time producing him, but if they manage it, you’ll have to marry him to apply any kind of privilege.
There is a conflict between confidentiality and mandatory reporting. The ideal of confidentiality is that anything you say in private that you don’t want recorded or repeated should be kept private. The ideal of mandatory reporting is that if anyone finds out about a crime a person has committed, it should be reported for the sake of justice.
The solution is that we limit both of them in different situations. Confidentiality is generally limited to those who have a crucial and necessary role in keeping information confidential. In other words, those positions or professions that are deemed essential by society and which require confidentiality to function properly. That’s lawyers, medical professionals, and in some cases, religious professionals.
Mandatory reporting is generally limited to those who are in a position that allows access to vulnerable individuals. That’s teachers, social workers, police officers, and sometimes also medical professionals or religious professionals.
Because those include some of the same categories, the law gets very specific and sometimes even contradictory in different jurisdictions.
Because nurses and doctors aren’t lawyers, and have different concerns that justify and limit anti-testimonial privilege.
To illustrate, consider who should do what if a person approaches them while covered in someone else’s blood and viscera.
- the spouse and should be free to offer comfort and advice in what was definitely a traumatic situation.
- the priest should be able to take confession without regard to temporal concern.
- the lawyer will need to start preparing a criminal defense
- the doctor and nurse should be able to heal their wounds, but also really should wonder if there’s someone else out there in need
I absolutely won’t defend the current system where patients need to be lawyers to know when they should lie to their doctors. Or where the CDC can’t say *warning, DomeGuy has COVID!" but the DA can demand my doctor tattle on my prescriptions.
French pastor here: at least in France, I am bound by professional secrecy, except for crimes. If I hear someone committed a crime, even more so if it’s a repeated offense, I can and will report it. I believe it’s the same for other professions, except perhaps lawyers: if a doctor learn that someone did or do a crime, they have to report it.
It’s probably different in your country, I just said that because I find that interesting.
except that medical workers famously don’t have to report you for taking drugs,
Doctor - patient confidentiality is a thing.
That’s about your medical conditions you’ve seen them about though, not secrets, right? Also might not apply to nurses.
Not being a dick or looking for a fight. Where do you live at? The only thing I know of remotely close is a doctor can not talk to other people about your condition (though they regularly do). Or they can “read between lines” and we know what they are talking about and whom. I tried my damnedest to live by the do no harm philosophy. Like the Hippocratic oath says. May be the greedy part of me but I like to sleep at night.
I live in the UK. Patient confidentiality is protected by law - medical personnel cannot share personal information unless the patient gives explicit consent (with some latitude when someone is incapacitated and has a spouse/next of kin)
However there are some explicit limits. Medical professionals also have legal duties under Safeguarding laws; there is a professional and legal requirement to divulge information if it is necessary to protect the patient or other people from harm. If someone confesses to a crime it can be shared if there is a risk to other people (e.g. child or domestic abuse being sadly common examples). It’s on a case by case basis; it would be a breach of patient confidentiality to share a confession if no one is at risk of harm. But where you draw the line is difficult - there is established case law that confidentiality can be breached “in the public interest” which is very subjective.
But it’s obviously very subjective territory - if someone confesses to a murder 20 years ago, should you share it? You could argue that there is a risk that someone who has murdered may murder again, but you could also argue that there is no actual reason to suspect they would commit further crime especially if they’re dying. It’s also “in the public interest” to investigate murder and convict someone, especially if it prevents someone else from being falsely accused etc. It can be argued multiple ways, but most likely divulging that information to the police would be deemed an acceptable breach under the law.
One key part of all this is that a breach of patient confidentiality is a legal issue and the person &/or organisation (e.g hospital) can be pursued legally for the breach, including for compensation, and also via professional bodies for sanctions. So breaches can be pursued legally. So there is some recourse, but even if there is a breach, the information is still legally admissible in a trial.
It’s very complex and difficult to blanket say all information is 100% confidential. A lawyer is retained specifically to represent someone under the law, so a 100% confidentiality makes sense. A doctor or nurse is there to look after someone’s health, but also has responsibilities to the population at large, so confidentiality comes with caveats as you’re balancing the safety of the one patient against other unknown people.
None of those are absolute.
If your bankruptcy lawyer discover you committed murder they don’t have to keep silent (I’m not sure what the law or bar ethics rules are, but probably they need to report it - they don’t have the right skills to defend you). Asking a bankruptcy lawyer for a referral to a murder defense lawyer would probably be protected though - even if they don’t know one.
A priest can keep silent or not. Different religions have different rules. In some you confessed and their job is to pray for your spiritual forgiveness and they won’t say anything. In others they will say doing your time (turn yourself in) is the right action. In some cases they can make a judgement call of what to apply.
A doctor cannot talk about your health conditions to random people. However they can talk to those with a need to know, if your condition is criminal then those people may get a need to know.
In a perfect world you’d have gotten this explained thoroughly for your local jurisdiction as part of your registration requirements.
Doctors, lawyers, and priests have professional expectations to keep things secret, but if there’s ongoing harm to others, or certain crimes (child molestation, murder, etc.), they will report it.
HIPAA*
It isn’t considered to be in the public interest to make medical confidentiality the equivalent of legal confidentiality.
