Essay on the Veterinarian Law

As medical practitioners, veterinarians have to ensure that they keep all the medical information of their patients confidential in addition to the financial and personal information of the patients owners. The expectation that the profession has arisen in three ways. These ways include Veterinarian Code of ethics, Fiduciary Duty and By-Laws. With the veterinarian Code of ethics, the veterinarians and their associates should ensure that they protect the personal privacy of their patients and their clients. It is imperative to comprehend that the veterinarians should in no position reveal the confidences of their patients unless the law requires them or unless it becomes necessary to protect the welfare and the health of other animals or individuals. With regard to Fiduciary Duty, it is the duty of an individual such as one in the veterinarian medicine to act primarily for the benefit of others in matters that are connected with such undertaking. As a fiduciary, a veterinarian is tasked with a clients animal to provide certain service or advice in relation to that animal. Any individual with special knowledge which in some way has accepted some form of trust by another individual in required to ensure that they fulfill vital responsibilities especially in exercising that trust especially the duties of loyalty, due care, candor, fidelity, and confidentiality. It is also imperative to comprehend that a failure in exercising such duty to their client results in a breach of contract of fiduciary duty and may thus result in civil lawsuits. With regard to fiduciary duty, a duty may be imposed by the courts or by statutes.

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Employees are mainly considered as agents of employers and as such, veterinarians should abide by the traditional rules of agency meaning that they owe a duty of loyalty to their employers. It should be comprehended that the Restatement (Second) of Agency requires that they duty of loyalty is broadened to include the duty of confidentiality, loyalty, and obedience (Fellmer, 56). Any employee such as a veterinarian with access to confidential information about a patients animal or trade secrets is under a different standard of confidentiality than any other employee who is not entrusted. Thus, a veterinarian should not look at any position release information regarding a clients animal. There are a few exemptions to this duty especially when the veterinarian gets a receipt of a written authorization that is waived by the client to the extent that the owner or the client of the animal places at issue in a criminal or civil proceeding.

Confidential information in the instance of the provision of veterinarian services include customer identities and their preferences in terms of surgical or medical techniques, marketing strategies, copyrightable works, pricing schemes, patentable inventions, software programs, and employee information (Hannah,12). The misuse or release of confidential information means that an employer or the owner may suffer serious professional or financial harm. It is thus vital for persons offering veterinarian services to conduct self-assessment in the bid to determine the extent that they are willing and able to safeguard the confidential information or institute policies that are necessary to the safeguarding of such information. The level or extent to which civil or court proceedings allow the information to be considered as confidential is determined in part by the efforts that the veterinarians expands to protect such information (Richards,78).

Going by the current economic downturn and the mix of rapid employee turnover that is proving volatile, there is an increasing trend of decreasing employee loyalty, and the ever-increasing nature of vindictive disgruntled employees, it is imperative that employers must take active responsibility to ensure that they create and maintain the confidentiality of their own secrets (Wanner,93). This should be done with active confidentiality agreements, non-solicitation, and clauses in employee contracts. It is also imperative to ensure that employers should exercise caution when dealing with vendors, independent contractors, suppliers, and business partners in addition to employees for possible breaches of contract with regard to confidentiality and the inclusion of confidentiality agreements where it is appropriate (Babcock and Pfeiffer, 34). The hospitals that have staff members who lecture, conduct training programs especially in the offsite organization should make sure that all the information that they deal with are reviewed for confidential information before being utilized. Due to the varying state laws, it is vital that veterinarian employees are advised to ensure that they seek qualified legal opinions before adding any provisions of confidentiality in their contracts. It is also imperative to comprehend that a failure in exercising such duty to their client results in a breach of contract of fiduciary duty and may thus result in civil lawsuits. With regard to fiduciary duty, a duty may be imposed by the courts or by statutes. Although such provisions may seem too vindictive sometimes, it is also vital that the hospitals are providing such services also draft strong written policy agreements that reiterate the issue of confidentiality. It is up to the employers in each of the hospitals to ensure that their employees sign an acknowledgment of various policies regarding confidentiality at the time of their employment.

Works cited

Babcock, Sarah L., and Christine Pfeiffer. "Laws and regulations concerning the confidentiality of veterinarian-client communication." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 229.3 (2006): 365-369.

Richards, Kerry. "Restrictive covenants in veterinary medicine." Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 224.7 (2004): 1079-1081.

Fellmer, E. "Responsibility for confidentiality of the veterinarian." Berliner und Munchener tierarztliche Wochenschrift 99.11 (1986): 376.

Wanner, F. "[Veterinarian-patient confidentiality]." Schweizer Archiv fur Tierheilkunde 151.1 (2009): 39-40.

Hannah, Harold W. "The Limits of Confidentiality: A Veterinarian's Duty to Report Disease, Cruelty, and Theft." (1995).