Too much to ask for and i am not the doctor

Yup, that a line from Alanis' song

Now, what if I am a doctor?

Perhaps, I could be an unethical one. Because the irony in my former school. The person who taught us on medical ethics is not that 'ethical'. You can read more in my former post. Lawyer vs Doctor.

Family pressure can lead me to become unethical. Especially my father. He always ask for hypodermic needles. (nope, my father is not an IVDU, he uses them for extracting splinters or puncturing abscess...) He also have the potential to push me to override the medical protocol. Once he asked me to ask a doctor for his prescription. I told him, he had to see one in order to get doctor's prescription. And he still insist me to get one. So, I ignored his phone calls until he sees one.

Another situation where medical ethics are grey are is when one of my family or friend to our family got warded. They would ask me to read the case notes laying on the table. When doctors make round in the ward, the nurses would put patient medical record on the table of respective patient. Once, my father's friend got admitted to the ward. My father asked me to read his friend case notes. Who am I? I am not his attending doctor. I can't breach patient doctor confidentiality. I should ask for the attending doctor's permission if I were to read his case notes. And I am not a consultant. Why would the attending doctor share the patient's report? It took me 10 minutes to argue. And because I am a good son, I did some physical examination just to please my father. (Yup, I am good enough to obey, but he still thinks that I am bad...)

Another incident occurred when my cousin was admitted. The whole family asked me what happened to her? My mother asked me too. I told them ask the attending doctor or my cousin. I can't just read the medical report, case notes and charts. But I did my best to give her the best service.

Some of my colleague know about my situation that time so they asked me how is my cousin. I tell them what I know. And they asked me back "So how, the Liver function test, Full blood count and the MRI?". I explain to them that, I don't read much on the report. And come the big question... "WHY DON'T YOU READ THE REPORT? AREN'T YOU CURIOUS? DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT HER?". Wow! my colleague scolded me for being ethical. I mum my mouth. "I SHE'S MY COUSIN, I WOULD READ THE CASE NOTES". I can't stand the criticism because I think I did the right thing so I bombarded her with my argument "IT'S CALLED MEDICAL ETHICS, I CAN'T SIMPLY READ THE CASE NOTES WITHOUT THE ATTENDING DOCTOR'S PERMISSION OR MY COUSIN'S PERMISSION. DON'T YOU LEARN THAT IN MEDICAL ETHIC CLASS?

It is our doctors are not ethical enough or am I being too idealistic. Even my psychiatrist/psychiatry professor said I am too idealistic...

Now I can simply say, don't ask me, I'm not the attending doctor.