Biomaterial Database

The physician-patient privilege: the practical necessity of a written patient waiver. 1990

R A Biggs, and R L Spell

Communications between physician and patient have been protected from disclosure to third parties with the enactment of state statutes. The medical privilege, as it is commonly known, now embodied in Rule 503 of the Mississippi Rules of Evidence, contains the limiting language that the privilege is waived only to the extent that the patient places his medical condition at issue in a judicial proceeding. The authors note that this oftentimes forces the physician to make difficult decisions concerning what information, if any, is to be disclosed to an outsider to the physician-patient relationship. It is therefore prudent for the physician to insist upon a carefully worded written authorization, executed by the patient, prefatory to release of any such information.

UI	MeSH Term	Description	Entries
D008922	Mississippi	State bounded on the north by Tennessee, on the east by Alabama, on the south by Louisiana and Gulf of Mexico, and on the west by Arkansas and Louisiana.
D003219	Confidentiality	The privacy of information and its protection against unauthorized disclosure.	Patient Data Privacy,Privacy of Patient Data,Privileged Communication,Confidential Information,Secrecy,Communication, Privileged,Communications, Privileged,Data Privacy, Patient,Information, Confidential,Privacy, Patient Data,Privileged Communications
D004282	Documentation	Systematic organization, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of specialized information, especially of a scientific or technical nature (From ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science, 1983). It often involves authenticating or validating information.	Documentations
D006801	Humans	Members of the species Homo sapiens.	Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man