Confidentiality and Contraband

I have this letter in today's New York Times:

To the Editor:

Dr. Sandeep Jauhar undermines his argument for physician-patient confidentiality by referring to an instance in which he accepted an envelope of white powder, presumably drugs, from a patient and “discarded” it to avoid discovery by the police.

Hiding evidence of a crime isn’t confidentiality; it’s obstruction of justice. There is nothing about one’s status as a physician — or a lawyer, for that matter — that requires or excuses the possession or concealment of contraband.

STEVEN LUBET

The oped to which it responds is here.

[cross-posted on Legal Ethics Forum]

Comments

[Peter Friedman]

So, Professor Lubet, what would you have done?

[anon]

Actually, doctors are made aware almost routinely of illicit use of drugs, sometimes even improper use of drugs they have legitimately prescribed.

Following Steve's overall view of things (e.g., waging a campaign against an author who wrote about actions that he believed might have been crimes, attacking Republicans incessantly, often using trivial asides uttered by the most buffoonish of the candidates as the subjects of lengthy essays, etc.), it would appear that he believes doctors should be an adjunct police force, rooting out criminality in the reports by their patients and then reporting their patients to the police (for punishment to the fullest extent of the law, right?).

That sort of transformation of the medical establishment (albeit, if one reads the NYT piece, already underway) would surely continue to affect the state of unity, freedom, tolerance and civility in this nation to which Steve regularly adds his contributions.