Is Workplace Kin?

Abstract

When health care workers receive health care at their workplace, an ethical question arises if the workplace is considered kin.

Being a patient is never easy, but it may become more difficult when the patient is also a health care worker (HCW). Considering that a HCW is in an advantageous position to choose his or her own workplace for receiving health care, an ethical question arises whether the modern workplaces can be considered kin for workers. This scenario elicits the irony that, unlike attorneys who can represent their own kin in the absence of any explicit conflict of interest, the HCW may not manage his or her kin’s health care due to conflicts of interests that may arise while delivering care (American Medical Association [AMA], 2019; Trinh, 2015).

This situation calls to question whether hospitals should restrict HCWs from having their workplace as their health care provider because of implicit conflicts of interests that could arise when receiving care from a coworker. During a health care encounter among coworkers, just like kin, there can be personal concerns for confidentiality when sharing health information (AMA, 2019). There are certain exemplary scenarios to consider. Secondary to being hesitant with sharing of personal, social, and sexual history with a coworker during a patient–provider encounter, HCWs, as patients, may be incompletely managed by their workplace that serves as their caregiver. The HCW, as a provider, may have a professional dilemma when during a patient–provider encounter, he or she becomes privy to sensitive information about a coworker’s health, like indicators of drug abuse or communicable diseases, especially if there are elements in the coworkers’ health information which can be potentially detrimental to workplace safety (Society for Human Resource Management, 2018; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2017). Similarly, having access to sensitive health information, such as indicators of cognitive decline that a patient/coworker may be experiencing, can pose an ethical dilemma for the HCW evaluating and managing their care (Fleck, 2015). If there is inexplicable professional-or-personal tension among the coworkers, the HCW and employer may be exposing themselves to potential medicolegal risks, especially when a HCW is evaluating and managing a coworker for diseases affecting those parts which are anatomically or psychologically considered private (Kane, 2018).

Summarily, modern workplaces have evolved as round-the-clock abodes, where the coworkers are attached to each other professionally and personally which ensures an appropriate balance of regimented professionalism and chaotic humanity at the workplace. Therefore, it may be safely presumed that “unseeing the seen” to respect patients’ privacy may be a difficult task for HCWs, especially, when they meet their coworkers in their workplaces as their patients. Henceforth, to prevent even unintentional impropriety or oversight by coworkers, it may be better to embrace personal inconveniences when deciding to avoid receiving personal health care at work, unless suffering from clinical conditions requiring emergent management or unable to find safer and better alternatives.

Occupational health nurses are adept at detecting workplace hazards warranting interventions to reduce risk and avoid crisis (American Association of Occupational Health Nurses, 2019). Therefore, the issue of recognizing and accepting HCWs’ workplaces as their kin may prompt occupational health nurses in health care to consider their current workplace policies and procedures as they pertain to worker confidentiality when receiving care in that institution, as well as issues that may adversely affect the quality of the care.