Professional Conduct, Ethics, and Patient Rights
Ethics and patient rights
Maryland licensees owe patients honesty, informed consent, confidentiality, and non-exploitation. Informed consent is a process, not a signature: explain the condition, proposed interventions, alternatives, risks, benefits, and the right to refuse. Confidentiality covers records and conversations; disclose only with authorization or as law requires. Sexual contact with a current patient is prohibited; dual relationships that impair judgment are risky. Billing must reflect services actually provided. Patient rights include access to records, respectful care, and freedom from discrimination.
Reporting and impairment
Licensees must report certain conduct to the Board as required by law, including unprofessional conduct and impairments that affect practice. A colleague who is impaired should be removed from patient care and reported through the appropriate channel; do not investigate alone. Child abuse or neglect and elder or vulnerable adult abuse have separate mandatory reporting duties.
Worked example
A patient offers a large cash gift and asks the PT not to document a fall. The PT should decline the gift if it creates a conflict, document the fall objectively, and explain why. Altering the record or omitting an incident violates documentation and ethics rules and harms future care.
Traps
- Treating gifts as always prohibited or always harmless; analyze intent and conflict.
- Assuming confidentiality ends when a patient dies.
- Letting a patient waive documentation of an incident.
- Confusing a friendship with a permissible professional relationship.