Reporting of gunshot wounds by doctors in emergency departments: a duty or a right? Some legal and ethical issues surrounding breaking patient confidentiality.

Recent guidelines have been produced advising doctors working in emergency departments that they should report all gunshot injuries to the police (albeit with consent in all but very limited circumstances). This article will discuss some of the legal and ethical issues that surround breaking patient confidentiality in relation to gunshot wounds and other potentially dangerous patients; and looks at some cases from the UK and the USA where such issues have been ruled on. Finally, the issue of whether physicians do, or should, have a duty to warn when they feel that their patient may be dangerous will be discussed.