My third job shadow of the year took place at the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. Here I audited a class on Confidentiality and Privacy. This class was led by my mentor Dr. Peyton McElroy.
After interpreting the five paragraphs worth of directions to get to where I needed to go, I met Dr. McElroy in the small group learning center right next to South’s medical library. It was a large room consisting of about 15 tables with 6 chairs each. As the room filled up with first-year medical students Dr. McElroy placed me at a table with some of the medical students. It was funny hearing them talk about how I am “so young”. The class started with a lecture from Dr. McElroy. We learned about the most basic concepts of privacy and confidentiality and why we hold them to such a high standard in our society. Learning about the roots of these concepts allowed us to have an easier time reasoning out the ethical questions that we would discuss later.
About halfway through the lecture, we did a small activity with our tables. Dr. McElroy had written out some different scenarios for us to discuss as a table. These consisted of “How would you feel if your next-door neighbor knew what you wore to bed each night?” and “How would you feel if the College of Medicine administration had a constant live feed of your kitchen?” After people gave their inputs, we continued with the lecture further discussing the intricacies of privacy and confidentiality.
At the end of the lecture, we worked on some USMLE-style practice questions. This consisted of a situation that might occur in the healthcare field, and we had to choose the most ethical course of action. I will say that on one of the questions I applied the table consensus, and it turned out that my answer was right.
I quite enjoyed this class. As much as I enjoyed learning about these ethical situations, I also enjoyed getting to experience what a college class looks like. I enjoyed the environment and I felt like I got lots of benefits from the exposure. I would go back again in a heartbeat and I'm looking forward to that being my college life.
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