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Medical Confidentiality

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MEDICAL CONFIDENTIALITY

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Introduction
Medical confidentiality refers to ability and the capacity of health care providers to protect and keep secret any information relating to patients and their illness. As professionals, physicians and other members of the healthcare team are mandated to safeguard any piece of information entrusted to them by clients and patients. To this end, it is provided for in their curriculum that, doctors be taught medical legal issues as well as ethical considerations that comes with the profession, because theirs is a noble profession that deals with sensitive issues of patients’ illness or health . This piece therefore seeks to explore in details issues surrounding medical confidentiality as required of physicians.
Medical confidentiality
Patient-doctor relationship is significantly influenced by the manner in which healthcare professionals conduct themselves and most importantly handle the sensitive information in their custody regarding patient care. The level of trust and the desired level of outcome of medical care depends to a greater extent on the good relationship enjoyed between patients and healthcare providers, confidentiality, as well as team work and support among the health care team. Doctors handle a wide range of issues; from rape, assault, psychological disturbance, mental illness, gynecological as well as suicide and homicide related cases .
It must be agreed that confidentiality is not an easy task, physicians and by extension healthcare staff are human beings, and human beings are the most social beings to ever inhabit this planet. Therefore in their day to day operations and social interactions, medics find it difficult to determine how much of patients information need to be shared with their colleagues, family members, and significant others. The field of

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