This video is of an ethical dilemma posed by a Pharmacy student and illustrates the conflicts between respecting autonomy (by keeping medical information confidential) and nonmaleficence (protecting a friend).
This is a story told to the professor by a student in a Pharmacy Ethics class he taught at the University of Mississippi. The student worked part-time in a nearby pharmacy by day and as a bartender at night. By a prescription she filled for him earlier in the day, she could tell that the guy hitting on her friend at the bar that night had an STD. The question for the class was whether she should tell her friend about this or not. It provoked a really good discussion in class, and provoked a lot of discussion in the comments section on TikTok as well.
I use this story often when I teach Biomedical Ethics. On the one hand, the student wants to help and protect her friend; telling her friend about a risk the friend faces seems to count as using medical knowledge to prevent someone from being harmed. So, a lot of the students in my Biomedical Ethics classes will argue that the duty of nonmaleficence obliged the student to tell her friend. But they also think the student had a duty to respect the privacy of her customers/patients, and she would have been violating that duty by telling her friend that the guy hitting on her had an STD. It brings out the conflicts between the basic principles of biomedical ethics in a way that is very relatable to college students.
Neil A. Manson
Neil A. Manson is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Mississippi, where he has taught for over 18 years. More information about him can be found at his University of Mississippi page and at Academia.edu.
