Ethics and Legal Duties Flashcards
7 cards from real MCCQE practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 7 Ethics and Legal Duties flashcards as text
A pharmaceutical company offers a physician an all-expenses-paid trip to a resort in exchange for prescribing their medication. This arrangement is best described as:
Answer: An inappropriate conflict of interest and potential bribery
Accepting inducements from industry in exchange for prescribing constitutes a serious conflict of interest and violates professional and legal standards.
A physician inadvertently makes a medication error that causes patient harm. What is the ethical obligation regarding disclosure?
Answer: Proactively disclose the error, apologize, and explain the steps taken to prevent recurrence
The duty of candour requires physicians to proactively disclose adverse events, including errors, to affected patients.
What distinguishes therapeutic privilege from withholding information inappropriately?
Answer: Therapeutic privilege is rarely justified and applies only when disclosure itself would directly cause serious harm
Therapeutic privilege is a narrow exception permitting non-disclosure only when the disclosure itself (not the diagnosis) would directly harm the patient.
A patient's substitute decision-maker demands aggressive life-sustaining treatment that the medical team believes is non-beneficial and causing suffering. The most appropriate next step is:
Answer: Engage in conflict resolution, involve ethics consultation, and consider legal review if needed
Disputes over futile treatment require structured conflict resolution, ethics consultation, and, if unresolved, legal processes — not unilateral action.
Under Canadian privacy law (PIPEDA and provincial equivalents), a patient's health information can be disclosed without consent in which situation?
Answer: When required by law, such as mandatory public health reporting
Mandatory reporting obligations under public health legislation create lawful exceptions to the general rule of patient consent for disclosure.
A medical student performing a supervised procedure causes harm due to a technical error. Who bears the primary legal responsibility?
Answer: The supervising physician and the institution
The supervising physician holds primary responsibility for the actions of supervised trainees, and the institution may also bear vicarious liability.
A physician suspects that an elderly patient is being financially abused by a family caregiver. The patient denies abuse and asks the physician to stay out of it. What is the most appropriate action?
Answer: Assess capacity, document concerns, provide resources, and consider mandatory reporting if legally required in the province
Suspected elder abuse requires assessment of capacity, thorough documentation, offering resources, and following provincial mandatory reporting obligations where they exist.