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Call for papers - Ethical issues around patient confidentiality

Guest Editors

Marieke Bak, PhD, Technical University of Munich, Germany
James Scheibner, PhD, Flinders University, Australia

Submission Status: Open   |   Submission Deadline: 4 August 2025

 is calling for submissions to our Collection, Ethical issues around patient confidentiality. This Collection invites researchers to contribute to the discourse on ethical issues surrounding patient confidentiality in the context of modern healthcare. We welcome submissions that explore the challenges and advancements related to patient privacy, data protection, and the ethical implications of electronic health records. By fostering a deeper understanding of these issues, we aim to inform best practices and policies that uphold patient rights while enhancing healthcare delivery.


New Content ItemThis Collection supports and amplifies research related to  and .

Meet the Guest Editors

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Marieke Bak, PhD, Technical University of Munich, Germany

Dr Marieke Bak is a bioethicist focusing on the ethics of data-driven care and AI in medicine. She conducts research at the Institute of History and Ethics in Medicine of the Technical University of Munich as well as at the Department of Ethics, Law and Humanities of Amsterdam University Medical Center. Her approach combines empirical research with normative analysis. She participates in international projects using Embedded Ethics (EE) to integrate ethics into digital health technologies like robotics, wearables, and AI. She is a member of ethics committees and the board of the Dutch Society of Bioethics.

James Scheibner, PhD, Flinders University, Australia

Dr James Scheibner completed his undergraduate studies in computing and law at the University of Tasmania. He earned his PhD researching the relationship between informal norms and formal intellectual property rights in open source bioinformatics with Professors Dianne Nicol and Jane Nielsen. He then completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship at ETH Zurich’s Health Ethics and Policy Laboratory with Professor Effy Vayena. His research interests include intellectual and industrial property law, data privacy law, and health law.

About the Collection

Patient confidentiality is a cornerstone of medical ethics, ensuring that individuals' health information is protected and respected. In an era of rapid technological advancement, the complexities surrounding patient confidentiality have intensified, particularly with the rise of electronic health records (EHRs) and digital health technologies. These innovations offer significant benefits for patient care and data management whilst also raising critical ethical questions regarding information disclosure, consent, and the potential for breaches of confidentiality. 

Advancing our collective understanding of ethical issues surrounding patient confidentiality is crucial for developing robust frameworks that protect patient rights while facilitating effective healthcare delivery. Recent advances in this field have included the establishment of stricter regulations and guidelines for data protection, as well as the implementation of advanced encryption technologies to safeguard health information. Furthermore, interdisciplinary research has highlighted the importance of patient engagement in discussions about confidentiality, fostering a culture of trust and transparency in healthcare settings.

Looking to the future, continued research in this area may lead to innovative solutions that enhance patient confidentiality while accommodating the evolving landscape of digital health. Potential advances could include the development of more sophisticated consent models that empower patients to control their health data, as well as the integration of artificial intelligence to monitor and protect sensitive information in real-time. Such advancements could significantly improve the ethical management of patient data in an increasingly interconnected world.

 is calling for submissions to our Collection on Ethical issues around patient confidentiality. This Collection seeks to delve into the complex dimensions of these critical issues, examining the delicate balance between safeguarding patient privacy and the necessity of data sharing in healthcare. Key topics of interest for submission include, but are not limited to:

  • Ethical implications of electronic health records
  • Patient engagement in confidentiality discussions
  • Innovations in data protection technologies
  • Balancing data sharing and patient privacy


This Collection supports and amplifies research related to  and . 


Image credit: © coffeekai / Getty Images / iStock

  1. Patient satisfaction is a significant measure of healthcare service quality as the patient is the center of any surgical procedure. Patient satisfaction refers to the extent to which a patient’s expectations o...

    Authors: Dawan Jamal Hawezy
    Citation: ¾Á¸»ŠÊ˜·³Ç Medical Ethics 2025 26:55
    Content type: Research Published on:

Submission Guidelines

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This Collection welcomes submission of original Research Articles. Should you wish to submit a different article type, please read our  to confirm that type is accepted by the journal. Articles for this Collection should be submitted via our submission system, . During the submission process you will be asked whether you are submitting to a Collection, please select "Ethical issues around patient confidentiality" from the dropdown menu.

Articles will undergo the journal’s  and are subject to all of the journal’s standard policies. Articles will be added to the Collection as they are published.

The Editors have no competing interests with the submissions which they handle through the peer review process. The peer review of any submissions for which the Editors have competing interests is handled by another Editorial Board Member who has no competing interests.