Can my personal health be revealed without my consent?

[kineticheaven]

I know how this may sound, so let me explain. I am a new pediatric PDN and about a month after working at my new site, I developed shingles. Right away, I went to a clinic and got diagnosed. I was told I couldn't work for two weeks and was given an excuse. I submitted the excuse to my job managers and told them of the situation. I only told one other employee and it was to the nurse that gave me orientation. When I came back from work after the two weeks, the patients parent asked ne how I was feeling and said her family member had shingles before. I was a bit taken aback because I was like..how did you know? I answered politely but it bugged me. Is it right for my personal health information to be exposed like that? Is there something I'm not understanding? Thank you for reading

[loriangel14, RN]

Well unless you said " Don't tell anyone" yeah people will say why you are off. It's not like your records were accessed illegally. You told a fellow nurse about it. If you wanted it to be a secret then you should have made that clear.

[macawake, MSN]

I submitted the excuse to my job managers and told them of the situation. I only told one other employee and it was to the nurse that gave me orientation.

When I came back from work after the two weeks, the patients parent asked ne how I was feeling and said her family member had shingles before.

Personally I dislike blabbermouths and I would expect that colleagues not share my specific medical diagnosis with patients or the patient's parents. To me it doesn't make a difference if the setting is hospital, clinic or private duty. I don't think it should be necessary to tell my colleague not to share my medical history, it's common sense to me and having boundaries in the nurse-patient relationship.

When asked by I patient why a certain nurse isn't available, I'll just say they have some time off. I won't even specify if they're on sick leave or on vacation or whatever. I'll leave it to the nurse in question to decide if they want to share this information with their patients or not. I'm sorry this happened OP. I'd be annoyed too.

[Yppah]

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I would try to keep personal health problems private, even among my coworkers. I agree with the above commenter, that this is probably not a violation of HIPPA violation.

[Hoosier_RN, MSN]

Only your provider has to protect your records. Your employer should as a courtesy, as well as coworkers, but unless you say "don't tell", you have no expectation of privacy, unfortunately.

[chare]

Always assume that anything you say to anyone is going to be repeated. As Ben Franklin wrote three may keep a secret if two of them are dead.”

[morte, LPN, LVN]

not illegal, but def. unethical.

[JustBeachyNurse, LPN]

It depends. Certain conditions are reportable if you exposed the child to the chicken pox virus because you had active/shedding shingles at work in an exposed area (arms, hands) you employee may have had to legally inform patients/parents of the exposure as a matter of public health especially if the child's condition made them more vulnerable. Just like you would be notified if exposed by a patient or their family to a reportable condition such as pertussis, TB, chicken pox. If you were the only nurse pulled off the case they didn't need to tell the parent as the parent could deduce you were the source of the exposure as the nurse pulled from the case for 2 weeks.

You assume someone told not that the parent deduced it was you based upon being notified of the exposure. Chicken pox is airborne whereas shingles is infectious blisters. So if public health policy is likely if you were near patients and contagious they have to notify family & coworker's (if applicable) of the exposure. You assume she was told not that she deduced you exposed her child to a contagion.

Did the parent say the office told me you had shingles?

Varicella is a public health reportable exposure and those exposed are entitled to be notified, just like if you were diagnosed with rubella, pertussis, hanta virus, even certain influenza strains. In this case it can be revealed without additional consent. They likely didn't reveal who but you were the only one off for two weeks

[aflahe00]

I'm sorry that happened to you it's definitely not anyone's place to reveal details like that.