Professionalism, Ethics and Patient Safety
What you must understand
Know the principles of medical ethics - autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice - and how they apply to consent, capacity, confidentiality, and resource allocation. Understand informed consent: disclosure of risks, benefits, alternatives, and the patient's right to refuse. Be fluent in patient safety: surgical safety checklists, wrong-site surgery prevention, hand hygiene, and root-cause analysis. Understand professional boundaries, conflict of interest, and the duty to report impaired colleagues.
Traps in questions
- Informed consent requires capacity, disclosure, understanding, and voluntariness - a signed form alone is not consent.
- A patient with capacity may refuse life-saving treatment; document the discussion.
- Confidentiality has limited exceptions - public safety, reportable diseases, and legal requirements.
- Wrong-site surgery prevention: marking, time-out, and verification of imaging and site.
- Conflict of interest must be disclosed; it does not automatically disqualify but must be managed.
Worked rule of thumb
For any ethical dilemma, apply the four principles, identify the conflicting values, and document the reasoning. When in doubt, involve the ethics committee and the patient's family with the patient's consent.
Exam strategy
Questions often test the difference between legal and ethical obligations - know both, and remember that patient autonomy generally prevails when capacity is intact.