Confidentiality and Adolescents

Case-Based Teaching Guide: Confidentiality and Adolescents

The duty of confidentiality has a long tradition in medicine, and it is generally assumed that medical professionals should have a strong presumption to respect confidentiality and avoid breaking confidences when at all possible.

Participants will discuss the basis of the duty of medical confidentiality and its application to the adolescent patient.

Also, they will identify situations in which breaking confidentiality is justified and the conditions that must be met to break confidentiality, recognize the physician’s duty to the patient when confidentiality is violated and identify threats to the maintenance of adolescent confidentiality.

Read the Instructor’s Guide or the Student’s Guide.

This teaching guide was developed by Douglas S. Diekema, MD, MPH, director of education, Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics, Seattle Children's.

In addition to the copyright notice set forth in the link below, permission to display, cache and print unlimited copies of the Case-Based Teaching Guides referred to on this page is hereby granted, solely for educational purposes, without charge (other than charges solely to cover the costs of copying), and without alteration of the Materials in any way.

1. Instructor's Guide2. Student's Guide3. Case Discussion