In simple terms, friendship is a bond you have with your chosen family. Friends are the brothers and sisters we never had, and they stick by us through the highs and lows of life. Read this story and let us know whether she is right in letting her friend know the truth about her boyfriend.
Source: Reddit
This has been eating me up inside for the past week, so I’m going to lay it all out here.
One of my closest friends (Amanda) started dating a guy (Matt) about 2 months ago. I’d met him twice before and he seemed pretty seedy to me, but she was happy so overall I was happy for them.
I work at our local hospital. I won’t divulge too much about my role, but I am not involved in providing medical care (i.e. I am not a physician or nurse), but I do have access to patient records and am permitted to look through them under certain circumstances with ethics approval.
I came across Matt’s chart just over a week ago. I was not snooping, I was explicitly gathering patient information for an approved task and he was one of the patients in the pile of charts. It’s not too much of a coincidence – I was going through ~500 patient records, and this is the only nearby hospital.
I discovered that Matt was HIV+ from his chart. I was unsure whether Amanda was aware. I wrestled with this in many different directions: Should I mind my own business and not violate confidentiality and risk her contracting the disease? Should I approach him first – even though it’s not my place and we’ve only met twice? Should I go straight to her just to confirm that she knows?
Ultimately I felt an obligation to her as my friend, and to her well-being, so I told her. Knowing her, I felt like she was unaware since she is generally extremely risk-averse and something seemed off about this guy, so I felt like approaching him might not accomplish anything. She was shocked to find out about his HIV status, and broke up with him.
Amanda was thankful to me, but evidently she let him know how she found out, as I was let go from my position two days ago. I understood the risk I was taking, and was hoping it was a calculated risk, but now I’m wondering if I overstepped by breaking confidentiality. Am I Jerk for letting my friend know the truth?
Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
