ABA Professional Standards & Ethics 4

Question 1

An anesthesiologist discovers an error made by a colleague that caused preventable patient harm but was not reported. The ethical course of action is:

Accepted Answer

Report the incident through the appropriate institutional quality improvement channel

Answer

Patient safety and honesty obligations require reporting adverse events through institutional channels to enable system-level learning and patient disclosure.

Question 2

The ASA's Statement on Racial and Ethnic Disparities primarily obligates anesthesiologists to:

Accepted Answer

Recognize and actively work to eliminate bias affecting clinical decision-making and outcomes

Answer

The ASA calls on anesthesiologists to actively recognize implicit bias and work to eliminate disparities that result in inequitable patient outcomes.

Question 3

Under what condition is it ethically permissible for an anesthesiologist to breach patient confidentiality without consent?

Accepted Answer

When disclosure is required to prevent serious, imminent harm to an identifiable third party

Answer

The Tarasoff duty and similar frameworks permit—or in some jurisdictions require—breach of confidentiality to prevent serious, imminent, identifiable harm to a third party.

Question 4

Which behavior MOST exemplifies the ethical obligation of self-regulation in anesthesiology?

Accepted Answer

Voluntarily seeking evaluation when experiencing signs of burnout or substance use

Answer

Self-regulation includes honest self-assessment and voluntarily seeking help for impairing conditions before they compromise patient care.

Question 5

When a research anesthesiologist publishes data selectively omitting unfavorable results, this constitutes:

Accepted Answer

Research misconduct through selective reporting

Answer

Selective omission of unfavorable data misrepresents research findings and constitutes research misconduct, regardless of IRB approval status.

(ABA) ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists) Board Certification Practice Test

(ABA) ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists) Board Certification Practice Test

ABA Professional Standards & Ethics 4