Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy
Showing posts with label Treatment Records. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Treatment Records. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Changing the way we communicate about patients

Abraar Karan
BMJ Blog
Originally posted August 29, 2018

Here is an excerpt:

There are many changes that we can make to improve how we communicate about patients. One of the easiest and most critical transformations is how we write our medical notes. One of the best doctors I ever worked with did exactly this, and is famous at the Brigham (our hospital) for doing it. He systematically starts every single note with the person’s social history. Who is this patient? It is not just a lady with abdominal pain. It is a mother of three, a retired teacher, and an active cyclist. That is the first thing we read about her, and so when I enter her room, I can’t help but see her this way rather than as a case of appendicitis.

This matters because patients deserve to be treated as people—a statement that’s so obvious it shouldn’t need to be said, but which physician behaviour doesn’t always reflect. You wouldn’t expect to know the most sensitive and vulnerable aspects of someone before even knowing their most basic background, yet we do this in medicine all the time. This is also important because in many clinical presentations, it provides critical information that helps deduce how they got sick, and why they may get sick again in the same way if we don’t restructure something essential in their life. For instance, if I didn’t know that the 22 year old opioid addict had just been kicked out of his house and is on the street without transportation to get to his suboxone clinic, I will not have truly solved what brought him to the hospital in the first place.

The info is here.

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

UO whistleblowers: giving student's confidential therapy records to campus lawyers felt wrong

By Richard Read
The Oregonian
Originally posted June 4, 2015

The executive assistant to the director of the University of Oregon's Counseling Center disobeyed instructions last December and showed a therapist a confidential email from their boss.

The email's directions horrified both Karen Stokes, the director's assistant, and Jennifer Morlok, the clinician.

Shelly Kerr, the center's director, told Stokes in the Dec. 8, 2014, message to give the university's legal office a client's entire case file -- including notes taken by Morlok during private therapy sessions.

The client was a UO freshman who says she was gang raped multiple times on March 8, 2014, by three members of the men's basketball team.

Normally mental-health professionals go to great lengths, even in the face of court orders, to release as little information about clients as possible. Clinicians want patients to feel safe expressing their most intimate thoughts and feelings during therapy.

The entire article is here.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Alleged military sex assault victims seek to block use of counseling records

By Annys Shin
The Washington Post
Originally published February 14, 2014

Here is an excerpt:

Over the past several months, lawyers for the alleged victim in the Naval Academy case have been trying to block a judge from reviewing years of counseling records. Their latest appeal is still pending, but Col. Daniel Daugherty, the judge in the trial of defendant Joshua Tate, has already reviewed some of them, and agreed to release portions to the defense.

Advocates for sexual assault victims say the practice of going after mental health records undercuts the military’s efforts to get more victims to come forward and thwarts their treatment.

“The victim needs to be assured of confidentiality to effectively be treated and to be effectively diagnosed,” said Nikki Charles, who directs therapy and case management for the Network for Victim Recovery of DC.  “If you chip away at that…their chances of recovery diminish.”

The entire article is here.