GAMSAT Professional Ethics and Standards 3

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?

Accepted Answer

Confidentiality, by breaching the patient-physician relationship

Answer

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?

Accepted Answer

Prioritizing organs to patients with the best ability to benefit, combined with need and waiting time

Answer

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:

Accepted Answer

Strongly counsel the patient to disclose and document this counseling

Answer

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?

Accepted Answer

Withholding information from patients if disclosure would harm them, now largely rejected in favor of full disclosure

Answer

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:

Accepted Answer

Stop providing substandard care and ensure all participants receive at least standard of care

Answer

Research ethics requires that control groups receive at minimum the accepted standard of care; allowing substandard care violates non-maleficence.

(GAMSAT) Graduate Medical School Admissions Test Practice Test

(GAMSAT) Graduate Medical School Admissions Test Practice Test

GAMSAT Professional Ethics and Standards 3