The duty to warn and clinical ethics: legal and ethical aspects of confidentiality and HIV/AIDS.

Confidentiality is a principal corollary to medical treatment. It is founded on two main principles: first, there is the physician-patient relationship; only a patient who fully relies upon the physicians’ confidentiality will reveal personal and intimate details about his state of health. The second is keeping the patient’s secrets, which is essential for public confidence in the medical profession and an efficient health care system. There are, however, difficult cases in which physicians contemplate exceptions to confidentiality. They arise in situations where medical secrecy puts the physical integrity or the life of others at risk. Such situations raise special ethical and legal concerns. Prime examples for lifting medical confidentiality are mental diseases and HIV/AIDS cases, although some venereal diseases such as Hepatitis B trigger the same level of concerns.