Good evening

You are a physician assistant working with a physician who performs important surgical procedures on hospitalized patients. A patient who is the father of a friend of hers comes in to be evaluated before surgery. It happens that you know that the patient is an alcoholic, and also that the surgeon does not perform this procedure in patients with alcoholism problems since the healing in these patients is longer and these patients often become complicated and cause excessive bleeding after surgery. You want to tell the surgeon about this problem but fear it would be a violation of HIPPA.

What should you do?

Does this represent a legal and / or ethical issue?

Should you discuss this problem with your friend, the patient's son?

What would be your first responsibility as a medical assistant?