Informed Consent.............

Informed Consent is the process by which the treating health care provider discloses appropriate information to a competent patient so that the patient may make a voluntary choice to accept or refuse treatment. It originates from the legal and ethical right that the patient has the right to say what happens to his or her body. An informed consent can be said to have been given based upon a clear appreciation and understanding of the facts, implications, and consequences of an action. In order to give informed consent, the individual concerned must have adequate reasoning faculties and be in possession of all relevant facts at the time consent is given.  The physician has to involve the patient in their health care. It is usually in the parents’ rights to decide what type of treatment their child or children receive. But there is an exception to this doctors do have patient confidentiality for teens.

Confidentiality is defined as a set of rules or a promise that limits access or places restrictions on certain types of information. In so many words it means privacy. It means that when you, as a young person from 12-17 years of age, talk with your health care provider about certain issues like sex, drugs, and feelings, he or she does not feel comfortable talking with parent or guardian about. Also, the doctor does not tell your parents what you told them unless you give the physician permission. So my question is should a doctor tell a parent if their patient has a STD. Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) are infections that can be transmitted through sexual contact with an infected individual. These are also termed sexually transmitted infections or STIs. STDs can be transmitted during vaginal or other types of sexual intercourse including oral and anal sex.

For example there is this rare case were a teen by the name of Jessica and she is 17 years old. Monday morning she woke up with nausea. She goes to the restroom to vomit and she also has diarrhea. She has to miss school because she can’t leave the bathroom. Her mom decides to take her to the doctor because Jessica doesn’t look very well. They went to their family’s personal health care physician and the mom told the doctor to see if her daughter has a bad case food poisoning. The physician couldn’t detect food poisoning so he gave her another test and he tells her that she has HIV. Jessica told the family doctor she went to frat party 6 weeks ago and had gotten really drunk that night and had sex with this random guy she met that night. Jessica wasn’t supposed to be at a party, she told her parents she was spending the night at a friend’s house that night to study for a big test that was coming up for her class. From her parents knowledge Jessica was still a virgin. Jessica asked the doctor if he could not tell her parents.  The big problem is Jessica has to get treated for this right away but there is no way to that she could get the medicine for it without it showing up on their insurance statement. Now she has a dilemma so should the physician tell the parents or let Jessica get sicker?