A doctor might fail to disclose test results for several reasons. For one, they may simply forget to tell the patient about the test results. More often, test results can be lost or confused along the chain of communication in a hospital.

Honesty matters to patients. They need it because they are ill, vulnerable, and burdened with pressing questions which require truthful answers. Honesty also matters to the doctor and other medical professionals. The loss of reputation for honesty in medical practice means the end of medicine as a profession.

One of the most important factors in the physician / patient relationship is honesty. Doctors expect their patients to be truthful so they can provide appropriate care, but a 2018 study has revealed that as many as 80% of all patients lie or withhold information from their providers.

Although deception in medicine is generally wrong, as it tends to undermine patients’ autonomy and erode the trust between doctor and patient, the ethical duty to be honest is not absolute.

More than nine in 10 people ranked doctors as the most trusted profession, according to a survey of more than 1,000 people by Airtasker, an online community platform. Some 91.9% of respondents said they had trust in doctors.

Doctors saw a drop of 4% in public confidence in the last two years. Politicians were dubbed as the least trustworthy professionals, with just 5% of respondents placing their full trust in them….Patients trust nurses more than doctors.

Generally, unless the doctor’s actions are so negligent that he or she poses a risk to other patients, or the doctor has faced multiple charges, there will not be any adverse effects. Whether the doctor continues to work at his or her current facility will be up to that provider’s employer.

Is it possible to sue a doctor for emotional distress? The short answer is “yes.” Courts have ruled that when a doctor causes emotional distress due to negligence, the patient can sue just as if the doctor caused physical harm.

Examples of asymptomatic illnesses

• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Hepatitis B and C.
• Herpes simplex virus (HSV)
• Type II diabetes.
• Glaucoma.
• Osteoporosis.
• Respiratory diseases, like the flu or COVID-19.

Producing only a few, mild symptoms, disease is paucisymptomatic. Symptoms appearing later, after an asymptomatic incubation period, mean a pre-symptomatic period has existed. Knowing that a condition is asymptomatic is important because: It may develop symptoms later and only then require treatment.

Asymptomatic, chronic viral infections occur in a large portion of humanity. It has been estimated that on average every human being can be concurrently infected with 8–12 chronic viral infections, caused either by DNA or RNA viruses [1].

Asymptomatic infection rates exceeded 70% for most viruses, excepting influenza and human metapneumovirus, which produced significantly more severe outcomes. Symptoms were negatively associated with infection frequency, with children displaying the lowest score among age groups.

Study results revealed an overall pooled prevalence for asymptomatic carriers of 19.1% for any type of influenza, 21.0% for influenza A, and 22.7% for influenza A(H1N1).

As many as 50% of infections with normal seasonal flu may be asymptomatic, which may in part be due to pre-existing partial immunity [1]. Asymptomatic patients shed virus and can transmit the disease, but not at the same rate as symptomatic individuals, which creates an invisible “reservoir” for the virus.

Pathogenic mechanisms of viral disease include (1) implantation of virus at the portal of entry, (2) local replication, (3) spread to target organs (disease sites), and (4) spread to sites of shedding of virus into the environment.