Reaction Article # 10

According to What to Do When the Patient Says,‘please Don’t Tell Mom’, Perri Klass, a professor of journalism and pediatrics at New York University, had experienced that a middle-schooler told her in a private exam room that he had no friend in school, and that he was picked on sometimes by other kids in his school. Perri Klass was trying to talk to the student’s parents and let them talk to school, but the student asked this professor not to say any word to his parents and not to interfere. The consulting doctor had an ambivalent feeling toward this case-- keep their conversation as a privacy to earn the trust of the kid or give the information to the kid’s parents to protect the kid. Finally, she kept their dialogue as a secret because she thought“I was his doctor.”

The hot topic“Medical ethics”have been discussing in lots of hospitals these years, and the topic gives medical staffs some guidelines to follow--what to do and what to say when you encounter a medical moral judgment. I am not surprised at the pediatrician’s decision, but as a mother, I cannot understand why the consulting doctor doesn’t remind the parents that maybe the kid is in a dangerous situation. To tell or not to tell, I think it depend on the parents spiritual maturity. The professor should evaluate the parents’ ability first, and if they know that the parents can handle the problem, the professor could tell the parents what happened to their kid.

I think most of the doctors follow the principle of“Medical ethics”to protecting patients and themselves. In Taiwan, without the AIDS patient’s permission, the doctor cannot tell his wife that her husband has a severe contagious disease. If you are the wife of the AIDS patient, what do you think? (298 words)