Doctor's or Nurses or anyone, can you please tell me if you can withold info about a patient's health if....?A friend's husband has let us know that things are looking like she has lung cancer, and she is still young. She has been smoking for 20 years. She suffers from terrible anxiety and I saw her a week ago and she is a basket case, plus she looked pale and she is aging fast, and her face was swollen. She looked near death. This really disturbed me, especially when he called and said please don't tell nobody because if she finds out she would have a massive nervous breakdown! I am confused. How does he know and she not know herself? Is it true that if someone is that loopy and anxious, they will withhold information about her own health and well-being to her? I have never heard of this, but he flat out said she wouldn't be able to handle it. Has anyone heard anything like this before? I know she was taking xanax when I saw her and she was drinking alcohol too. She has to continue to work for the health benefits, since her husband doesn't have any. WTH? I can tell you she is not herself and she appeared to be having a nervous breakdown already. If she was that emotionally screwed up, how could she hide that from coworkers?
formerly_bob
The only way this situation could happen is if her husband decided his wife has lung cancer without any input from a doctor, or she was diagnosed by a doctor but she has had a psychotic break from reality. It seems more likely the husband is making an unqualified diagnosis.
Denisedds
There is no way she does not know her diagnosis and her husband does.
Doctors are obligated to tell the patient and have no obligation to the spouse. In fact, they are not even allowed to discuss it with the spouse without the patient's permission.
Even in cases where the patient has been declared incompetent the doctor will tell them.
Either the husband is jumping to conclusions on his own, but more likely as strange as it sounds, they were both told and she is in denial and they both are playing the pretend game. Although lung cancer is rare at her age, face swelling is a sign of extensive disease.
I doubt she is hiding it from her coworkers. She may think she is, but they see the same things you see.
Orignal From: Doctor's or Nurses or anyone, can you please tell me if you can withold info about a patient's health if....?
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