Professional Conduct, Ethics, and Patient Rights
Professional conduct items test judgment as much as knowledge. The Board polices unprofessional conduct that may violate no clinical standard at all - boundary violations, dishonest billing, abandonment, and failures to cooperate with an investigation. Expect scenario questions where the technically correct treatment is paired with an ethical failure.
Core duties
- Informed consent: explain the problem, the proposed interventions, alternatives, and foreseeable risks in language the patient understands, and document the discussion.
- Confidentiality: disclose protected information only with authorization, as required by law, or as necessary for treatment, payment, or operations.
- Autonomy and refusal: a competent patient may decline care; document the refusal and any education provided.
- Non-discrimination: care decisions cannot be based on race, sex, religion, disability, sexual orientation, or payer status.
Boundaries and conflicts
Sexual contact with a patient is prohibited and is a classic ground for discipline; the same concern applies to exploitative relationships formed shortly after the professional relationship ends. Conflicts of interest - self-referral, gifts that influence care, paying for referrals, commission-based compensation - must be avoided or disclosed. Abandonment occurs when a therapist ends care without notice, without transition, or without giving the patient a realistic chance to arrange alternatives.
Worked example
A therapist treating a patient for six weeks is asked out to dinner on the day of discharge. Accepting begins a personal relationship immediately after a therapeutic relationship that involved physical contact - a boundary problem the Board treats as unprofessional conduct. The safe answer is to decline and, if the patient persists, to document the exchange and consider transferring care.
Traps
Assuming a patient's consent cures a boundary violation; assuming a confidentiality breach is acceptable because the person asking is family; assuming a therapist may stop treating a non-paying patient without notice or transition; assuming a colleague's unethical billing is not your concern once you notice it.