[What do people talk about in Danish hospital elevators?].

Hospital elevators make up a part of the public space of hospitals which is used by both employees, patients, and patients' relatives. We performed an observational study to ascertain the frequency of ethically problematic conversations between employees in the elevators of three Danish hospitals. We defined a conversation as problematic if it breached confidentiality or if it could raise doubts about the professional or ethical standard of the hospital or its employees. Based on this definition we found that problematic conversations occurred in 18 out of 201 elevator-trips where more than one member of the hospital staff was present in the elevator (9%, 95% confidence limits 5-14%). The most common types of problems were breaches of confidentiality (6 cases), complaints about stressful work (4 cases), and complaints about the organisation (3 cases).