People lie for the evasion of punishment, for security of autonomy, for overwhelming others to obtain power, for manipulation of others, and to uphold self-importance (John). As such, dishonesties in medicine may be present in many forms, serve many purposes, and bring many different consequences (James). Patients, who are untold the truth about a medical intervention, are damaged of their autonomy and lose trust in their doctors. Doctors, whether inattentiveness to the truth or violations of honesty, face the termination of medical as an occupation if they no longer assure honesty in their medical practices (James). In such instance, patients, doctors, the medical profession, and the whole society dependent on trustworthy medicine are harmed (James). The truth, however, is some degree of …show more content…
If a doctor changes a record, it will be inconsistent with record written by other doctors and nurses in the hospital (John). Especially when there are numerous versions of the same record, any change made in the record is easily identifiable. Furthermore, falsification of records results in unchronological timeline of care, which forensic experts can be consulted to find the discrepancy in aspects of the chart (John). On top of that, according to John J. Ratkowitz, a medical lawyer, “if a doctor falsifies a medical record and you can prove this, you have the best proof possible on that issue available, since they would not bother changing a record to hide or add a fact if it was not important to a patient's care and a potential litigation” (John). As mentioned, most doctors aren’t able to falsify medical records as the patient would have an upper hand in court case, and the changes they make are easily detectable. Therefore, if a doctor do falsify a medical record, they are often helping the patient, and not hurting