Your health care providers have both an ethical and a legal obligation to keep medical information about you confidential. Without your authorization, your health care professionals may release medical information about you only under certain limited circumstances. Hospitals have a duty to treat any patient who requires immediate attention. Most hospitals have procedures whereby all patients who come to the hospital for emergency treatment are assessed and either treated there or stabilized and referred to an appropriate facility. Generally, you do.
Exceptions apply in certain limited circumstances.
For example, when a child requires immediate medical care and his or her parents are not available, the doctor may proceed to treat the child. Also, for certain types of treatment, such as treatment for venereal disease, the law authorizes minors to consent to treatment without informing their parents. You may make an anatomical gift of all or any part of your body for transplantation or research by signing the statement on your driver's license, or by stating these wishes in your will or in a separate document. If you later change your mind, you may amend or revoke your anatomical gift by signing a statement of amendment or revocation, verbally amending or revoking it in the presence of two individuals, or crossing out or amending the statement on your license. The IRB is a group of individuals who assure the protection of human subjects' rights and welfare.