Before picking up my phone to respond to this prompt, I first went online to search about how various professionals handle their clients' secrets. I found out that while some of them keep those secrets until death, others can make exceptions whenever a delicate situation arises.
I sighed and took a deep breath after finding that out because I can't imagine a situation where revealing a client's secret could save a life, yet the professional is bound by law and ethics to withhold that information. As a result, a life could be lost, especially in the medical and legal fields.
I have seen movies where the misuse of this principle led to unresolvable troubles for everyone involved.
Let's take a situation where a lady was admitted to the hospital and was diagnosed with HIV. The lady, being that she doesn't want to lose her marriage, insisted that the doctor shouldn't tell her husband and, in fact, planned to contract the husband with the virus to be on "mutual" ground. While this may look like a good plan by the lady to save her marriage, the outcome is going to put everyone in danger, especially with how they're going to live casually without taking proper care of the situation. If the doctor goes on to keep that secret, the doctor, though, trying to be professional, he's putting lives in danger. The best thing to do in such a situation is to reveal the information and save lives. Although some medical practitioners still do this today for the sake of money, accepting huge bribes to keep such information confidential while insisting they are simply being professional in their actions.
Among all professions, I don't think it is reasonable to keep a client's information confidential if doing so will endanger another person's life, no matter what. People say that the religious system is very strict about this and that whatever is confessed to a priest should remain between the priest and God alone. They believe that no matter how severe the information is, it should never be disclosed. I disagree with that as well. What if the priest's own life is put in danger? Should he still remain silent and get killed all in the name of keeping a secret? I trust our modern-day priests and pastors, they would probably use the situation as the topic of their sermon the following Sunday. Lol.
But then, if the information is clean and unharmed, it's expected that these professionals be good at keeping it confidential at all costs and never let out the information no matter what.
Someone like me, I have been told secrets when people confided in me, and I never let it out. Although the weight of the information is not dangerous, I don't think I can stand carrying such a heavy weight of dangerous information that'll harm someone's life and be calm about it.
Thanks for reading.
