Medical Confidentiality
Medical Confidentiality
the obligation of a physician not to reveal information about a patient without the patient’s permission, if it concerns an illness connected with the patient’s intimate personal life (women’s diseases, psychological disorders, certain growth defects, and so on). A physician’s obligation to observe medical confidentiality no longer prevails if it would contradict the interests of society. Thus, a physician is obliged to report cases of infectious and parasitic diseases which are subject to compulsory registration, to send patients to take compulsory treatment in those instances when this is provided for by law, and to provide information about a patient upon demand of judicial or investigatory agencies.