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`Watching' Medicine: Do Bioethicists Respect Patients' Privacy?

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Abstract

Agich has identified `watching' – the formal orinformal observation of the medical setting – as oneof the four main roles of the clinical bioethicist. By an analysis of a case study involving a bioethicsstudent who engaged in watching at an HIV/AIDS clinicas part of his training, I raise questions about theethical justification of watching. I argue that theinvasion of privacy that watching entails makes theactivity unacceptable unless the watcher has receivedprior consent from the patients who are beingobserved. I conclude that, even though it isimportant for bioethics students to understand thecomplexities of actual medical practice, watchingshould play a prominent role in bioethics educationonly if the privacy problems in it can be resolved.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto, 215 Huron St., Toronto, ON, Canada, M5S 1A1

    Donald C. Ainslie

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  1. Donald C. Ainslie
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Ainslie, D.C. `Watching' Medicine: Do Bioethicists Respect Patients' Privacy?. Theor Med Bioeth 21, 537–552 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1026511902210

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