CIT Medical Ethics & Patient Rights 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A patient is considering implant treatment but has unrealistic expectations about outcomes. The ethical obligation of the clinician is to:
- Proceed and address disappointment later
- Provide honest, complete information about realistic outcomes before treatment (Correct answer)
- Overstate benefits to motivate patient compliance
- Defer to what the patient believes will happen
Correct answer: Provide honest, complete information about realistic outcomes before treatment
Honest disclosure of realistic treatment outcomes is fundamental to valid informed consent and prevents patient harm from unmet expectations.
Question 2: A patient declines antibiotic prophylaxis before implant surgery despite medical recommendations. The clinician should:
- Administer the antibiotics without telling the patient
- Refuse to perform any dental treatment
- Document the refusal thoroughly and respect the patient's decision after ensuring informed refusal (Correct answer)
- Proceed without documentation
Correct answer: Document the refusal thoroughly and respect the patient's decision after ensuring informed refusal
Competent patients have the right to refuse recommended treatment; clinicians must document informed refusal to protect both patient and provider.
Question 3: Which of the following is NOT a required element of informed consent for implant surgery?
- Description of the proposed procedure
- Material risks and benefits
- The clinician's personal financial incentives for recommending the procedure (Correct answer)
- Available alternative treatments
Correct answer: The clinician's personal financial incentives for recommending the procedure
Informed consent requires risks, benefits, alternatives, and procedure description, but does not typically require disclosure of the clinician's financial incentives under standard consent doctrine.
Question 4: A dental technician notices a fabrication error that could compromise an implant crown's longevity. Ethically, the technician should:
- Deliver the restoration and say nothing to avoid conflict
- Immediately notify the supervising dentist of the defect before delivery (Correct answer)
- Repair the defect without informing anyone
- Charge the patient for a replacement without explanation
Correct answer: Immediately notify the supervising dentist of the defect before delivery
Patient safety requires disclosure of fabrication errors to the supervising dentist before delivery to prevent foreseeable harm.
Question 5: Which action by an implantology team member constitutes a breach of patient confidentiality?
- Discussing a patient case with the treating periodontist
- Leaving patient radiographs visible on a screen in a public hallway (Correct answer)
- Sending encrypted records to a referred specialist
- Reviewing patient records in a private treatment room
Correct answer: Leaving patient radiographs visible on a screen in a public hallway
Leaving patient radiographs visible in public areas exposes protected health information to unauthorized individuals, constituting a HIPAA breach.
Question 6: A patient who speaks limited English requires implant treatment. To ensure valid informed consent, the practice should:
- Have the patient sign a standard English consent form
- Use a bilingual staff member to translate key points informally
- Provide a qualified interpreter and written materials in the patient's preferred language (Correct answer)
- Assume the patient understands by their nodding
Correct answer: Provide a qualified interpreter and written materials in the patient's preferred language
Valid informed consent requires meaningful understanding; a qualified interpreter and translated materials are necessary for patients with limited English proficiency.
Question 7: The concept of 'therapeutic privilege' in dental ethics refers to:
- The right to charge premium fees for specialized procedures
- Withholding information from a patient if disclosure would harm them (Correct answer)
- Prescribing medications without patient knowledge
- Priority scheduling for high-revenue patients
Correct answer: Withholding information from a patient if disclosure would harm them
Therapeutic privilege allows clinicians to withhold distressing information if it would directly harm the patient, though it is rarely justified and narrowly applied.
CIT Medical Ethics & Patient Rights 3
A patient is considering implant treatment but has unrealistic expectations about outcomes.
The ethical obligation of the clinician is to: