Ethics and Professional Conduct
This domain tests the standards expected beyond minimum competence: honesty, conflicts of interest, boundaries, advertising, and handling competing duties. Questions often present a plausible commercial or personal pressure and ask what the ethically correct response is.
Core rules and concepts
- The professional duty is fiduciary: the patient's interests come before the practitioner's financial gain.
- Conflicts of interest must be recognised, disclosed where relevant, and managed. Inducements for referrals, fee-splitting, and undisclosed commissions are generally prohibited.
- Advertising must be truthful and not misleading. Claims of cure, guaranteed outcomes, or superiority that cannot be substantiated are conduct risks.
- Professional boundaries require avoiding exploitative dual relationships, and being cautious with gifts, social media contact, and treating friends or family without proper records.
- Colleagues who are impaired or practising unsafely may trigger a reporting duty, balanced against confidentiality.
Worked example
A lens representative offers a paid holiday for switching a practice's default contact lens brand. The optometrist accepts and changes the default without disclosing the benefit. Even if the lens is clinically suitable, the undisclosed inducement compromises independent judgement and may breach inducement rules. The correct approach is to decline the benefit or disclose it and ensure lens choice is based on clinical suitability. The reasoning is that the conflict, not the clinical outcome, is the ethical failing.
Traps that cost marks
- Using 'everyone does it' to justify inducements or billing shortcuts.
- Assuming a clinically defensible decision neutralises an undisclosed conflict.
- Posting patient images or case details on social media without valid consent.
- Treating a personal friendship as a reason to skip documentation or fees.