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Inform seattle3/31/2023 ![]() It comes up with families of all backgrounds. Doug Diekema, director of education in the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics. This viewpoint is not exclusive to non-Western cultures, says Dr. In Japan, for example, cancer has a negative social stigma and is often equated with death, so families decide what the patient should be told. Many cultures believe medical information should be shared with the family, but not necessarily the patient. Worldwide, opinions on medical disclosure are diverse. Views shifted by 1979, when 97% of physicians reported full disclosure of a cancer diagnosis. Western medicine today favors patient autonomy and full disclosure, but, historically, doctors often concealed information from their patients.Ī 1927 issue of Harper’s Magazine describes the art of medicine as “skillfully mixing falsehood and truth.” In 1961, most physicians did not tell patients they had cancer because they believed the information would be too distressing. Recognize That Yours Is a Minority Viewpoint Seattle Children’s experts and patient families offer the following advice to clinicians determining how much information they should divulge to patients. The case raised a complicated ethical question: Do physicians have an obligation to talk to pediatric patients about their health or should they defer to the family? “If you tell her, she will die,” they said. The patient’s family asked doctors not to tell her she had cancer. Without treatment, doctors predicted she would die in three to four months. ![]() ![]() With resection and radiation therapy, she had a 50% chance of survival. In July 2016, a 15-year-old girl (patient X) came to Seattle Children’s Emergency Department to seek treatment for neurofibromatosis – a genetic disorder that causes tumors to form on nerve tissue.Ĭlinicians soon discovered she had malignant tumors in her head and neck. When Parents Want to Keep Health Information From Patients
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