All the people in the comments here are trash

[conuly]

https://old.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/pw83vo/aita_for_reporting_my_girlfriends_hipaa_violation/

A bajillionty variations on

"She told you because she thought she could trust you!"

Yeah, well, the patients there thought they could trust the staff. Guess they were both wrong, huh?

"You put her job at risk and she may even face legal charges!"

Nope, she did that all by herself.

"Don't you know there's a huge fine for these things?"

Yeah, that's because you're not supposed to do it. The threat of a $50k fine is supposed to make you think twice before revealing patient information for the lulz.

"You ruined your relationship! She doesn't want to be in a relationship with a snitch!"

I would hope he has enough pride not to want to be in a relationship with somebody who has proven herself untrustworthy and unethical like this, so no great loss there.

God, I hope none of these people work with sensitive materials.

(I do agree with the variations on "You should have told her to stop" but then they end with "After all, it's just one time, why report her?" which - is it just one time? None of us, including the OP, actually knows that for sure.)

Comments

Re: Imma go armchair pyschologist/devil's advocate here for a minute

[conuly]

Most ordinary people, when they know that something comes with a $50k fine, don't do it.

Re: Imma go armchair pyschologist/devil's advocate here for a minute

[marahmarie]

It really shouldn't take a $50,000 fine to encourage ethical behavior in any situation, be it personal or professional. That's just icing. So no, I don't disagree she exercised poor judgment.

OTOH, hopefully her exercise in poor judgment leads her to kick him straight to the curb. Definitely she needs to throw out the whole entire man. I couldn't live with someone like that as my SO - more to the point, I wouldn't want to.

(I mean, okay...I'm just gonna say it. It's a short line from that to "Well, the government says if you're even 25% Jewish then you're Jewish, period. There's a new law on that you know, and a huge fine for you to pay, so since you've told me you're Jewish now I have to turn you in". I don't want this for even a hypothetical SO, thank you, carry him out to the trash, please.)

Re: Imma go armchair pyschologist/devil's advocate here for a minute

[conuly]

That's not a short line. That comparison is offensive. "Don't breach medical ethics" is not even remotely in the same class as "don't be Jewish".

Re: Imma go armchair pyschologist/devil's advocate here for a minute

[marahmarie]

I'm not saying they're equivalent - and unless you have Jewish ancestry I'm pretty sure you're not the one who gets to be offended. I'm saying someone who does the one is more likely to do the other because he goes too far to begin with, doesn't even tell her beforehand how he's about to do her (very bad) and has zero loyalty to keep him from going even further on his ethical one-upping in the future, is what I'm saying.

Not to mention who wants to live with a taskmaster who's always trying to show you up for something, which it sounds like he might relish to me. It seems you see it as a straight right or wrong answer and as a hypothetical question that's fine but these are flesh and blood human beings so I see it as right, wrong, and what's the most human thing to do, given the givens. He's not treating her as though she's human so might have simple lapses in judgment, he's going straight for her heart, pocketbook, and job.

Re: Imma go armchair pyschologist/devil's advocate here for a minute

[conuly]

What sort of person has this sort of lapse in judgment? What sort of person sees that another person known to her has an illness, and thinks "Oh, wow, now I can make fun of him behind his back!"

Re: Imma go armchair pyschologist/devil's advocate here for a minute

[marahmarie]

Someone who thought her boyfriend would relish the fact that his enemy happens to have a problem with the very body part he used to pee on his locker with?

I'm not saying what she did was right. Read and re-read every word of my comments, you will not find those words within any of them.

All I'm saying is if it's a first time issue for her with him she should be assumed to have shown a lapse in judgement so should be treated accordingly - and that if she resists being told to make a course correction or does the same thing again in the future then he should take his spotless, pristine ethics and leave.

Re: Imma go armchair pyschologist/devil's advocate here for a minute

[conuly]

Someone who thought her boyfriend would relish the fact that his enemy happens to have a problem with the very body part he used to pee on his locker with?

You wouldn't say his enemy suffered from a few childish lapses in judgment? That should be brushed over on the grounds that he's probably outgrown them, just like you're assuming that somebody who will breach medical ethics once for a petty reason probably hasn't already done it many times?

Re: Imma go armchair pyschologist/devil's advocate here for a minute

[marahmarie]

Oh yeah, definitely! I do. Let's put it a bit more unkindly: maybe she was an asshole to think her boyfriend might just get a huuuuge kick out of this.

That's probably as deep as her thinking went on it, though. In her excitement at bringing him a tidbit of news she thought might please him she probably didn't think about or else forgot the HIPAA part, or maybe she figured she could trust the info would go no further than the two of them so to her that felt like a safe risk. All bad/stupid things to think.

I'm totally not defending her a bit. I'm mostly saying she needs a better boyfriend, and maybe she herself needs to grow the fuck up.