Medical monitoring without physical injury: the least justice can do for those industry has terrorized with poisonous products.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Asbestosis↗
Biomedical subjects
Richard Bourne
Publications and source records attributed to Richard Bourne.
Case vignette: unanticipated propinquity.
CASE VIGNETTE: UNANTICIPATED PROPINQUITY. Dr. Marge N. O'Vera has a reputation in the community as a thoughtful, caring, and highly ethical psychotherapist. For more than a year she has been treating Greta Grievance, helping her to cope with emotional and financial insecurities in the aftermath of a highly contentious divorce. During a therapy session, Ms. Grievance tells Dr. O'Vera that she has decided to sue the attorney who represented her during the divorce. Ms. Grievance believes that he did not represent her interests effectively and that she foolishly took his advice in accepting a very inferior settlement. She has retained another attorney who, she tells O'Vera, will soon be calling to request information on the stress of the divorce and Ms. Grievance's continuing need for therapy. Dr. O'Vera will be asked to testify as to the harm caused to her client and resulting treatment expenses. As Ms. Grievance gets up to leave, she tells Dr. O'Vera, "I'm so glad you'll help me teach that awful Tom Tort a lesson." As she hears the name of Attorney Tort for the first time, Dr. O'Vera begins to sweat. Thomas Tort, attorney at law, is also a client of hers. She had no idea that he had been Ms. Grievance's divorce lawyer. She has treated him for recurring major depression over several years and knows that he probably was sufficiently depressed so as to compromise his professional work at the time he represented Ms. Grievance. When she is named as an expert witness for the plaintiff, Attorney Tort will learn that his therapist was also treating Ms. Grievance. At the same time, her duty of confidentiality precludes her informing others that Tort is also her client. What is Dr. O'Vera to do?
Altruism↗
Case vignette: confidentiality and spouse battering The importance of knowing what you know and don't know Rocky Brute: a duty to warn? Double trouble: "Rocky Brute" and the ethics of confidentiality.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Confidentiality↗
Case vignette -- mandated child abuse reporting.
Case Vignette: Martha Harris has been a licensed mental health professional for nearly a decade. As she arrived at her office early this morning, the phone was ringing. Speaking in a tremulous voice, the caller stated, "I was given your name by my internist, Dr. Williams. I think my husband may be abusing our 5-year-old sexually. Can you help?" After a few minutes of conversation, Martha offers to schedule a prompt appointment. The caller interrupts and asks, "You won't have to report this will you?" As a mandated reporter under the state's child protection statute, Martha has no choice but to inform the authorities; she tells the caller, who immediately hangs up. Suddenly, Martha realizes that she does not have the name or any other identifying information about the caller. A call to Dr. Williams results in a response that the internist does not want to "get involved." Commentators on this case are Richard Bourne, JD, PhD, one of whose special areas of expertise is child protection and related professional obligations; Eli H. Newberger, MD, a pediatrician with a special interest in child maltreatment; and C. Sue White, PhD, one of whose primary interests is how clinicians may inappropriately use techniques to interview children suspected of child sexual abuse, causing contaminating influences to interfere with children's memories for their own experiences.
Child Abuse↗