Copyright Goodheart-Willcox Co., Inc 32 Unit 1 Foundations of Medical Law and Ethics members to engage in a certain amount of continuing education in both the latest practice techniques and ethics rules because both change over time. Generally, you should recognize that, by joining a profession, you will be undertaking a commitment to some level of lifelong learning to keep up with the changing field. Ethical decision making can be more difficult than you might think. For instance, suppose that you are a primary care provider talking to a married couple. You find yourself in a conversation that involves sensi- tive, personal information about the husband, who is your patient. He is describing symptoms that indicate a sexually transmitted infection (STI), and recent tests confirmed this diagnosis. You have not received permission from the patient during previous visits or the current discus- sion to disclose this diagnosis to anyone, including his spouse. This may be particularly true because the patient did not know about his condition when he allowed his wife to sit in on the conversation. Eventually the patient’s spouse should be informed of the diagnosis, in the interest of her own health. At this point, however, your under- standing is that the patient would prefer the issue to remain confidential (Figure 2.10). You should consider whether it would be ethical to tempo- rarily refrain from disclosing your diagnosis to the patient until you are able to talk to him in private. During an emergency, decisions need to be made immediately (see Chapter 9 for further discussion). In other situations, there is time to review formal written opinions from authoritative bodies, such as VGstockstudio/Shutterstock.com Figure 2.10 Even in the case of a married couple, physicians must keep each individual patient’s medical information confidential until consent to reveal that information is given.