AMC MCQ Ethics and Professional Practice 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A colleague appears to be drinking alcohol before clinical shifts and you have witnessed errors. What is your first professional obligation?
- Ignore it to protect the colleague
- Address patient safety, which may require a mandatory notification to AHPRA (Correct answer)
- Confront them publicly in front of patients
- Wait for a patient to be harmed first
Correct answer: Address patient safety, which may require a mandatory notification to AHPRA
Patient safety takes priority and impairment risking patients is notifiable conduct.
Question 2: A dying patient asks you to actively end their life. In most Australian jurisdictions with VAD laws, what is required?
- Any doctor may comply immediately on request
- Strict eligibility criteria, multiple assessments, and formal legal process must be followed (Correct answer)
- It is universally illegal everywhere in Australia
- Only family consent is needed
Correct answer: Strict eligibility criteria, multiple assessments, and formal legal process must be followed
Voluntary assisted dying, where legal, requires strict eligibility, multiple independent assessments, and legal safeguards.
Question 3: You realise you made a medication error that caused minor patient harm. Open disclosure principles require you to do what?
- Conceal it to avoid litigation
- Honestly inform the patient, apologise, and explain what happened and next steps (Correct answer)
- Only tell your supervisor
- Document it but never tell the patient
Correct answer: Honestly inform the patient, apologise, and explain what happened and next steps
Open disclosure requires honest, timely communication and an apology to the affected patient.
Question 4: A patient's adult child demands information about the patient's diagnosis. The competent patient has not consented. What should you do?
- Share freely with close family
- Maintain confidentiality unless the patient consents or a legal exception applies (Correct answer)
- Share only the diagnosis but not the prognosis
- Demand the child prove their identity then share
Correct answer: Maintain confidentiality unless the patient consents or a legal exception applies
Patient confidentiality must be maintained without consent, even with close relatives.
Question 5: Which best describes the ethical principle of 'justice' in clinical practice?
- Always doing what the patient wants
- Fair distribution of resources and equitable treatment of patients (Correct answer)
- Avoiding harm to patients
- Telling the truth at all times
Correct answer: Fair distribution of resources and equitable treatment of patients
Justice concerns fairness and equitable allocation of healthcare resources and treatment.
Question 6: A research participant wants to withdraw from a clinical trial midway. What is the correct response?
- Refuse, as they committed to the trial
- Allow withdrawal at any time without penalty or impact on their care (Correct answer)
- Allow withdrawal only with investigator approval
- Charge them for costs incurred
Correct answer: Allow withdrawal at any time without penalty or impact on their care
Participants may withdraw from research at any time without penalty or effect on their ongoing care.
Question 7: A patient with intellectual disability needs a procedure but cannot consent. Who is the appropriate decision-maker?
- The treating doctor alone decides
- A legally recognised substitute decision-maker or guardian, acting in the patient's best interests (Correct answer)
- The hospital administrator
- Any available relative regardless of legal standing
Correct answer: A legally recognised substitute decision-maker or guardian, acting in the patient's best interests
A legally authorised substitute decision-maker or guardian must consent on behalf of a patient lacking capacity.
AMC MCQ Ethics and Professional Practice 3
A colleague appears to be drinking alcohol before clinical shifts and you have witnessed errors.
What is your first professional obligation?