Thinking of thanking a former teacher (1 Viewer)

[Courtney1915]

Hello everyone,

I hope this question isn’t too weird, however, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a week.

So, I work as a receptionist at a hospital and the wife of one of my former teachers rang up to speak about her upcoming procedure. Anyhow, I recognised her last name (it’s quite unique) and I just happened to mention that I had a teacher with that surname. Turns out, it’s her husband!

During the conversation, she mentioned that he was retired and was now doing relief teaching at another local school.

He was always incredibly helpful toward me and I never got to properly thank him. I was considering writing him a card and sending it to the school that he now does relief teaching at. I’m just worried, though, if that would be classed as a breach of confidentiality. I know he wasn’t the patient, and she did openly tell me the name of the school, but I’m still worried if I will get into trouble for it.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Rose.

 

[jimmysmith560]

Essentially, a breach of confidentiality can occur when you misuse information that you are trusted with. This includes leaking information relevant to patients (whether medical or personal), resulting in other people gaining unauthorised access to this information, as well as you willingly sharing information relevant to patients with people that you know and who are otherwise not allowed to access such information. Engaging in such conduct creates a risk for the affected patients.

In your particular case, while it is the patient that provided you with this information, the information itself is not related to her medical or personal information, but to a different person who is not a patient and has nothing to do with the hospital that you work in. Additionally, there is a chance that the name of the school where your former teacher does relief teaching can be found in a different way (similar to any other school), such as through a Google search, meaning that, in addition to the fact that your former teacher is not a patient to begin with, information such as the name of the school where he works is publicly available anyway, and is not subject to forms of protection that would otherwise be needed for sensitive and confidential information.

I hope this helps!

 

[ExtremelyBoredUser]

Essentially, a breach of confidentiality can occur when you misuse information that you are trusted with. This includes leaking information relevant to patients (whether medical or personal), resulting in other people gaining unauthorised access to this information, as well as you willingly sharing information relevant to patients with people that you know and who are otherwise not allowed to access such information. Engaging in such conduct creates a risk for the affected patients.

In your particular case, while it is the patient that provided you with this information, the information itself is not related to her medical or personal information, but to a different person who is not a patient and has nothing to do with the hospital that you work in. Additionally, there is a chance that the name of the school where your former teacher does relief teaching can be found in a different way (similar to any other school), such as through a Google search, meaning that, in addition to the fact that your former teacher is not a patient to begin with, information such as the name of the school where he works is publicly available anyway, and is not subject to forms of protection that would otherwise be needed for sensitive and confidential information.

I hope this helps!