Professional Ethics and Professional Boundaries
What the exam tests
This domain tests ethical duties-autonomy, veracity, confidentiality, nonmaleficence, and justice-and the boundary issues that can become Board complaints.
Core rules
- Respect patient autonomy, including the right to refuse treatment. Do not coerce or misrepresent treatment needs.
- Maintain professional boundaries: avoid romantic or sexual relationships with patients, exploitative gifts, and dual relationships that impair judgment. Follow office policy on social media and personal contact.
- Protect confidentiality in small communities; do not discuss identifiable patients outside the treatment team.
- An impaired colleague should be addressed through the appropriate channel, including the Board or a recognized intervention program when patient safety is at risk.
- Unprofessional conduct includes fraud, misrepresentation, practicing beyond scope, and failing to meet infection control or recordkeeping standards.
Worked example
A long-term patient sends a hygienist an expensive gift and a social media friend request. Reasoning: the gift and personal contact can blur boundaries; decline or follow office policy, document the interaction if it affects care, and avoid private social media contact that could compromise professionalism.
Traps that cost marks
Believing a friendship is always harmless; assuming only overt harm is unethical; and forgetting that boundary violations can be disciplined even without a clinical error.