Disguised Information
Viroj Wiwanitkit MD*
Affiliation : * Department of Laboratory Medicine, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok
The author heard an interesting idea on how to collect blood for medical usage. The idea is “to tell
the patient’s cousins to donate blood for the patient’s usage before a surgery”. The physician that proposed
this idea mentioned that it was an effective method and sometimes receives plenty of donated blood. The topics
to be discussed on this blood bank practice based on clinical pathology ethics include:
1. This is a donation thus, is acceptable. However, it is a directed donation. The donor has to pay for
the management cost to the blood bank(1,2).
2. This may be a lie to the patient’s cousins. Often, the patients use placebo in medical research or
therapy(3,4). Furthermore, medical research or therapy must follow scientific standards and ethical control.
Obviously, asking for a donation in the quoted manner might be effective persuasion; however, some problems
can be expected. Although the cousin donates blood, the blood might not match or the amount may exceed the
real need of the patient. In addition, the donation might be done based on the implied physician’s words,
although the patient does not need blood transfusion(1,2).
3. Generally, an informed consent is necessary before doing any medical procedure(5). In this case,
although it is not the case of a patient, it is of a cousin and the information is given. However, the information
is problematic as there may be some disguised and incorrect content. Therefore, this is a lie in Buddhism, as it
cannot be said that this is to help the patient.
4. Giving disguised or incomplete information should be avoided. A physician should provide trans-
parency and complete information. This can prevent possible problems and make the physician’ listener
continue to respect the physician’s words.
Keywords : Disguised information, Medical ethics
