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Indiana doctor fined by medical board [1]

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Date: 2023-05-27  

Dr. Caitlin Bernard was fined $3000 by the Indiana Medical Licensing Board on Thursday. You might remember that she performed an abortion on a 10 year old rape victim last year. Ostensibly, this fine because she supposedly violated the patient’s right to privacy by discussing the case with the media.

To be sure, patients have a right to privacy. And it would be my guess that this little girl would probably rather not hear about her own case on the news. However, doctors do have a right to discuss medical cases with the media as long as they don’t publicly identify the patient.

In fact, they kind of have to do it. Doctors often publish articles in medical journals about rare and unique cases in medical journals. The patients’ names are left out of these articles, but other doctors can learn treatment information that might be useful in treating future patients. These medical journals are available to the public. You don’t have to be a doctor to read one, you can access them out of curiosity if you like.



Years from now, you might be the first US patient to come down with COVID-32. You might not want an article written about you, but the public still has a right to know that somebody out there has it. Your name just won’t appear in the news unless you want it to.



And doctors have a duty to be advocates for their patients. In this instance, Dr Bernard advocated that the treatment that she performed on her young patient be legally available for all future patients with similar conditions. If Republicans truly cared about privacy, they would let abortion remain legal.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/5/27/2171688/-Indiana-doctor-fined-by-medical-board

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