Can We Breach Medical Confidentiality?

The foundation of the relationship between a doctor and patient is trust, thus making medical confidentiality of utmost importance. Medical confidentiality is the duty of any healthcare professional to keep their patient’s information private. However, is it ever acceptable to break this secrecy if you know that a patient’s health status may be harming themselves or others? As healthcare professionals, it is their most important duty to promote virtue ethics to ensure the safety of the people even if it results in dereliction of discretion and going against ethical rationalism.