A Study On The Protecting Policy Of The Right To Know And The Right To Privacy In Medical Actions

Both the right to know and the right to privacy are basic civil rights. Owing to the particularity of the medical action, it's easy to infringe these two rights of the patients'. With the development of the market economy and the improving citizen conscious of ruling by law, the issue to protect these two rights in medical actions was emphasized by us more and more often. How to solve the conflict between them becomes the focus. However, present policies and laws lack practical ideas to guide the solving of these problems.This thesis combines theory analysis method with example analysis method to study the protecting problems of these two rights in medical actions. First, the conceptions of the rights and the legislating situation in home and overseas were discussed. Then, the main contents of the two rights in medical actions and the major conflicts between them were approached. Later on, the related policies and laws to protect these two rights of the patients were analyzed; the items must be taken note of in the realization progress were stated; the rights and duties of the patient, the hospital, and the government were told. At last, the solving method of several conflicts commonly seen between the two rights, and the principles must be obeyed were interpreted in details. Following conclusions were obtained:1, the rights of those directly involved must be protected first, when their rights conflict with their relatives' in the project of gene. The relatives' rights must not be violated in the meantime. The public's right to know must base on the inviolability of the AIDS patients' right to privacy when the rights of the two sides conflict. And the patient's sex partner's right to know must be protected cautiously at the same time. In the physical examination before marriage, the right to know of one side has priority over the right to privacy of the other side. The public and the society's right to know has priority over the individual right to privacy in the area laws permitted. But it cannot extend to the area that one want to know for curiosity or desire. It's the requirement of the agent's right to know that to respect the patient's right to privacy and to know the information related to making disease decision merely.2, to balance the right to know and the right to privacy, four principles must be obeyed. There are principle of the preference of the public benefit, principle of honest and credit, principle of harmonious interest and principle of coordinated rights.3, in order to protect these two rights effectively and to deal with the conflicts between them rightfully, we need the efforts not only of the hospital and the patient, but also of the government and the whole society.