GAMSAT Professional Ethics and Standards 3 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: A physician is treating a colleague's family member and discovers a condition the colleague is unaware of. Disclosing the diagnosis to the colleague without the patient's consent would violate which principle?
- Beneficence, by prioritizing the colleague's interests
- Non-maleficence, by causing psychological distress
- Confidentiality, by breaching the patient-physician relationship (Correct answer)
- Justice, by providing unequal treatment
Correct answer: Confidentiality, by breaching the patient-physician relationship
Confidentiality protects patient information regardless of the recipient's professional status or personal relationship with the physician.
Question 2: In the context of organ transplantation ethics, which allocation principle is most aligned with distributive justice?
- Allocating organs to the highest bidder to maximize societal economic output
- Prioritizing organs to patients with the best ability to benefit, combined with need and waiting time (Correct answer)
- Giving organs only to patients who agree to participate in research
- Reserving allocation decisions exclusively for the transplant surgeon
Correct answer: Prioritizing organs to patients with the best ability to benefit, combined with need and waiting time
Distributive justice in organ allocation balances clinical benefit, medical urgency, and equitable waiting time to ensure fair distribution of a scarce resource.
Question 3: A physician treating a patient with HIV is aware the patient is not disclosing their status to a regular sexual partner. Ethically, the physician should first:
- Immediately notify the partner without the patient's knowledge
- Strongly counsel the patient to disclose and document this counseling (Correct answer)
- Discharge the patient from the practice for non-compliance
- Report the patient to public health authorities without counseling
Correct answer: Strongly counsel the patient to disclose and document this counseling
The first ethical step is to counsel the patient about their duty to disclose and document these efforts before considering duty-to-warn obligations.
Question 4: Which of the following best describes 'therapeutic privilege' and its modern ethical standing?
- The right of patients to choose their own treatments, widely accepted today
- Withholding information from patients if disclosure would harm them, now largely rejected in favor of full disclosure (Correct answer)
- The physician's privilege to charge higher fees for complex procedures
- Allowing junior staff to perform procedures for training without explicit consent
Correct answer: Withholding information from patients if disclosure would harm them, now largely rejected in favor of full disclosure
Therapeutic privilege was once invoked to justify withholding distressing information, but modern ethics strongly favors full informed consent except in rare emergencies.
Question 5: A researcher discovers mid-study that a control group is receiving substandard care compared to the community standard. The ethical obligation is to:
- Complete the study to maintain scientific integrity of the design
- Stop providing substandard care and ensure all participants receive at least standard of care (Correct answer)
- Publish the findings without modification as pre-registered
- Seek additional funding to upgrade the intervention arm only
Correct answer: Stop providing substandard care and ensure all participants receive at least standard of care
Research ethics requires that control groups receive at minimum the accepted standard of care; allowing substandard care violates non-maleficence.
Question 6: In ethical terms, what distinguishes passive euthanasia from active euthanasia?
- Passive euthanasia involves administering a lethal agent; active euthanasia involves withholding treatment
- Passive euthanasia involves withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment; active euthanasia involves administering a lethal agent (Correct answer)
- There is no meaningful ethical distinction between the two
- Active euthanasia is legal in all US states; passive euthanasia is not
Correct answer: Passive euthanasia involves withholding or withdrawing life-sustaining treatment; active euthanasia involves administering a lethal agent
Passive euthanasia refers to allowing death by withholding or withdrawing treatment, while active euthanasia involves a deliberate act to end life.
Question 7: A medical professional discovers that a peer is impaired by substance use during clinical duties. The most appropriate first action is to:
- Ignore it unless a patient is directly harmed
- Immediately remove the peer from patient contact and report to the appropriate authority (Correct answer)
- Privately confront the peer and advise them to seek help before reporting
- Notify the hospital administrator only at the end of the shift
Correct answer: Immediately remove the peer from patient contact and report to the appropriate authority
Immediate patient safety requires removing the impaired clinician from duty; reporting to the appropriate authority is mandatory to protect ongoing patient care.
GAMSAT Professional Ethics and Standards 3
A physician is treating a colleague's family member and discovers a condition the colleague is unaware of.
Disclosing the diagnosis to the colleague without the patient's consent would violate which principle?