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In this interaction, a patient’s ethnic background and limited English proficiency obstructed her care. Instead of taking steps to facilitate communication, the physician continued only with his established treatment plan and methods, failing to appreciate the value of the patient’s contribution to or understanding of her care. This contributed to the physician failing to treat the patient fairly and a poor outcome.

Patients have a right to expect that their private medical information will be kept confidential. In this interaction, a physician was ultimately responsible for a confidentiality breach — an ethically and legally inappropriate action.

This interaction involves a situation in which a physician allowed a compromise of professional boundaries in several ways. He acquiesced to a patient’s inappropriate requests for narcotics, and he entered into a romantic relationship with the patient. In the end, the physician paid a great price for his actions.

In this interaction, a patient rejected a particular recommendation from his physician. Although the patient continued to see the physician for other matters, he declined a referral to a urologist. Thus, this case explores ethical ideas associated with a patient’s refusal of treatment.

In this physician-patient interaction, the patient’s insistence that she be treated as an outpatient caused an ethical conflict with her physician, who thought she would receive better care by being admitted to the hospital. This case illustrates a common medical ethics question: How should a difference between a patient’s request and a physician’s beliefs about best care be resolved?