Q: When I went for an examination, my surgeon asked if two residents could be present. I felt uncomfortable, so I declined. My surgeon scolded me, saying I was preventing the next generation of doctors from being trained. Why is it my responsibility to provide training for medical students?
– Name Withheld, Beit Shemesh, Israel
A: Your surgeon’s request was reasonable; her brow-beating you was not. A new physician’s education must include work with actual patients, under the supervision of a wily veteran like herself. Because you, like all of us, rely on the skills of physicians trained in this way, you have a general obligation to reciprocate, to assist the next generation of patients as the past generation of patients has assisted you.
This training needs the participation of many patients but not all. If you demur, you should find another way to do your fair share for the health- care community.
…
Q: I am a volunteer firefighter. I responded to an accident involving someone I knew to be infected with hepatitis C, a contagious disease. As we cut the roof off her car to remove this injured and bleeding woman, two police officers approached to administer first aid. They were not wearing protective gloves, so I offered each a pair; they declined. Should I have revealed her medical condition? Should I inform those officers now?
– Ryan Thomas, Oakland County, Mich.
A: Your concern for the privacy of your injured acquaintance is admirable, but yes, you should have alerted those police officers to their serious, imminent danger.
These officers were – what’s the word? knuckleheads! – not to have donned their gloves already. Surely they were trained to. You should have offered the minimum information necessary, i.e., declared that you knew her to have an infectious disease. If they still eschewed protective gear, you could then have progressed from the general to the particular.
Having failed to do that, you must now urge them to get tested, which means revealing what they must be tested for.
UPDATE: Thomas spoke to the victim, who volunteered to notify the rescue workers herself.
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