Confidentiality and Privileged Communication between Doctor and Patient

A teenager tells a family doctor in Navi Mumbai that she has a health condition her parents do not know about. The doctor nods and says it stays in the room. Next week a police officer, a school, and her uncle each ask what the doctor knows. Who gets an answer? Confidentiality is the promise that makes patients honest with doctors, and the law keeps that promise with exceptions. The word privilege, which students often mix up with it, means something different and far narrower.

In two minutes

A doctor owes the patient a duty not to disclose what is learnt in treatment, subject to exceptions such as consent, compulsion of law and serious danger to others; but Indian evidence law gives a privilege against giving evidence to advocates and not to doctors.

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