Forensic Medicine and Medical Ethics: Duties and Evidence
What this domain tests
This section covers injury interpretation, asphyxia, poisoning, consent, confidentiality, negligence, and professional conduct. Ethics questions ask what a doctor should do when duties conflict.
Core rules
- The four principles are autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.
- Valid consent requires capacity, adequate information, and voluntariness.
- In an emergency, treat under the doctrine of necessity when the patient cannot consent and treatment is life-saving.
- Negligence requires duty, breach, causation, and damage.
- Confidentiality may be breached when there is a serious risk to an identifiable person or a legal requirement, and only to the necessary extent.
Worked example
A patient discloses that he intends to seriously harm his partner. The doctor should take the threat seriously, document the disclosure, seek senior and legal advice, and warn the identifiable person or authorities if the risk is credible. The reasoning is that confidentiality is strong but not absolute; a serious, imminent threat to an identifiable third party can justify limited disclosure.
Traps
Breaching confidentiality to family without consent; assuming a minor cannot consent to emergency care; missing the difference between negligence and poor outcome; describing a wound without relating it to the weapon or direction of force; ignoring chain-of-custody requirements.
Exam strategy
Identify the competing duties, choose the option that protects life and dignity, and disclose only the minimum necessary information.