Legal Problems on the Protection of the Patients' Medical Information

为了让医生对病人进行正确的诊断和治疗，从病人那里获得正确和准确的信息是必要的。因此，医生和医务人员负有医德和民法、刑法等法律规定的保密义务。然而，目前的法规还不足以保护这些信息。基因检测和治疗正在迅速普及，并在许多治疗领域得到应用。遗传信息不仅影响患者，也影响患者的亲属。如果对医疗信息的管理不当继续下去，可能会给社会带来严重的问题。根据信息的重要性（遗传密码信息、严重疾病，如感染艾滋病毒、性传播疾病、药物依赖等），对医疗信息的类型应该有不同的处理方法。虽然对于这种认为遗传密码远比普通体检信息重要的“基因例外论”可能会有一些异议，但这种异议的主要思想是现行体检信息保护制度的不足，但重要的一点是共同的。在这种情况下，从隐私权实践的角度出发，将医疗检查信息分为与特定个体相关的信息和源于“人”的医疗数据，是管理医疗检查信息的正确方式之一（Gostin）。尽管需要研究的课题不少，但我们还是希望朝这个方向推进这一论点。

In order for a doctor to carry out proper diagnosis and medical treatment to a patient, it is necessary to get proper and accurate information from the patient. The doctors and the medical staffs are, therefore, owe the duty of confidentiality by medical ethics and the law including civil law and criminal law. However, present regulations are not enough for protection of such information. It is getting popular in a rapid pace, and genetic examination and therapy are put in practice in many fields of treatments. Genetic information influences not only the patient but also patient's relatives. If improper management of medical information will continue, it may cause serious ploblems to society. There should be some different approach toward the types of medical information according to the importance of information (genetic code information, serious illness such as infection of HIV, sexually transmitted disease, drug dependence, etc.). Although there may be some objection toward such the "genetic exceptionalism", which regards a genetic code far more important than the ordinary medical-examination information, the main idea of such objection argues the insufficiency of present medical examination information protection system, the important point is common among them. In this context, to divide the medical-examination information into the information that connect to a specific individual and to the medical data originated from the "humans" is one of the proper way to manage medical-examination information in the standpoint of the practice of the right of privacy (Gostin). Although there are not few subjects which should be examined, it is desirable to advance the argument in this direction.