It is important to remember that when one medical health professional involved in your care shares information about your case with another medical health professional involved in your care both those people are bound to protect your privacy.

If doctors are allowed to talk to your family members about your diagnosis and treatment without your explicit permission you need to understand that those family members are not legally bound to continue to protect your information.

There is no legal recourse for when they share that further with other friends family your employer your kids anybody else.

Under the current system this is one reason that a medical health proxy or consent for release of information has to be very carefully considered. Who do you trust that much?

Many of us are lucky if we can trust one or two people to this extent. Do you really want a doctor who just met you perhaps in a crisis situation deciding who to trust with your personal health information?

Do you really want them choosing a person from your life who is not legally bound to further protect that information?

My answer is absolutely f*** no. If at that time I am such a danger to myself or others that I cannot be released from a hospital keep me and treat me until I am better.

If I have people in my life that I can trust to help me as an outpatient I will give explicit permission for them to be included in my care plan.
But that s*** is up to me.