Pros And Cons Of Informed Consent

In this paper, I will focus on the ethical issues of informed consent and the cultural mindsets of doctors and scientists during this time period.

In this case, the night of January 11, 1983, Nancy Cruzan was driving a car and lost control of her car as she traveled down Elm Road in Jasper County, Missouri. The car overturned, and Nancy Cruzan was discovered lying face down in a ditch without detectable respiratory and cardiac function. Paramedics were able to restore her breathing and heartbeat at the accident site and she was transported to a hospital in an unconscious state. Then neurosurgeon diagnosed her and found that she is having sustained probable cerebral contusions compounded by significant anoxia (lack of oxygen). The Missouri trial court found that permanent brain damage generally results after 6 minutes in an anoxic state and Nancy was in this stage for 12 to 14 minutes.

Obtaining an informed consent is a vital part of current health care. This document lists out several key pieces of information for both the patient, Provider, and the ancillary staff that also access the document during the procedure process. However, obtaining informed consent has not always been the practice norm and in research, informed consent carries different specifications.

In their article, “The Concept of Informed Consent,” Faden and Beauchamp give two varying definitions of informed consent, namely sense one and sense two. Sense one is defined as autonomous authorization, meaning that the patient or subject agrees and then gives authority to move forward with a proposal (Vaughn 191). The authors give four conditions that have to be met for informed consent to be recognized: the patient has to understand the information presented to her, there should be no manipulation or coercion, and she has to intentionally give her authorization (Vaughn 191). Faden and Beauchamp also note that the fourth condition, where the patient gives her authorization, is pivotal in this sense since it differentiates autonomous authorization

Katz states this about informed consent, “to suggest that informed consent with remain a fairy tale as long as the idea of joint decisionmaking, based on commitment to paint autonomy and self-determination, does not become an integral aspect of the ethos of medicine and the law of informed consent” (222).

Another issue with the implementation of Informed consent arises when the patient waives the right to Informed consent and leaves the right to make the decision on the physician. Though legally correct, this can cause psychological stress for the physician especially when the decision is about a life threatening medical condition. Moreover, this also makes the patient vulnerable to abuse. (Manthous, DeGirolamo, 2003)

In the world of medicine, consent is an ethical and a legal agreement between patient and their health care provider; to participate in but not limited to research trials or to obtain medical or surgical interventions. Consent generally is expressed or implied. Express consent can be an oral declaration or it can be provided by printed document. (informed consent). Nevertheless, consent is not an independent entity. It does not function on its own. It works in conjunction with capacity. Spike 2017, stated informed consent is the single most important concept for understanding decision-making capacity. This is measured by a patient’s ability to understand, retain, process and re-communicate the information provided by the medical professionals.

Informed consent is commonly obtained from patients for medical treatment procedures and protocols. While it may serves as a litigated protection and assurance for healthcare professions to confidently perform their duties as healthcare providers, informed consent also ensures patient’s understanding and acknowledgement of their involvement in multiple medical interventions pertaining to their health. As the patient sign these consent documents, they might be unaware of the existence of uncertainty in medical practice. Medicine is the evident of probability because we are not physiologically created equal. Therefore, medical uncertainty is inevitable and physicians have to face tough choices to make a decision they believe to be in patient’s

Informed consent is the process of giving participants of a research study an opportunity to make an educated or informed decision, based on what they consider to be beneficial or not to themselves, with the ability to deliberate the possible negative consequences of the proposed research. Although the subjects in the Tuskegee study did give consent, their consent was not to be subjects of a study that knowingly abstained from treatment for the disease, rather, they were consenting to be studied while being treated for syphilis. Their consent was therefore not informed as the true purpose of the study was never revealed to them.

The ethical issue of consent emerges because very little may be known about planned future uses of data when it is collected in large data analytics. With such doubt, neither risks nor benefits can be meaningfully understood. It is, thus, unlikely that consent attained at the point of data collection would meet a firm description of informed consent. For example, processes exist for generic and a wide-ranging consent to share genomic data, but are questioned on the premise that such consent cannot be expressive in light of the dangers unknown future genomic technologies.

Informed consent is the basis for all legal and moral aspects of a patient’s autonomy. Implied consent is when you and your physician interact in which the consent is assumed, such as in a physical exam by your doctor. Written consent is a more extensive form in which it mostly applies when there is testing or experiments involved over a period of time. The long process is making sure the patient properly understands the risk and benefits that could possible happen during and after the treatment. As a physician, he must respect the patient’s autonomy. For a patient to be an autonomous agent, he must have legitimate moral values. The patient has all the rights to his medical health and conditions that arise. When considering informed

In the 21st century Doctors and Researchers take informed consent very seriously. What is informed consent? Informed consent is the patient rights of awareness of treatment the doctor intends to give. Four guidelines/ rules are followed to confirm the patient has informed consent. Knowing the information about the study and telling patient specific details that will help them understand what will be occur during treatment/ research. The role the patient will have about the study. The contact information of the researcher/ doctor so patients can choose to back out of treatment anytime. The patient should know the risks and Benefits of the research. Patients should be aware of any possible adverse side effects and if there is no personal benefit, then the benefit of the research/ treatment for the overall population because of the study. Doctors and Researchers today initiate these guidelines when giving treatment or asking patient to participate in experiments/ studies. However it hasn’t always hasn’t been the case.

Informed consent according to Howard Brody is overlooked and not integrated into the health care system properly. The patients’ needs and desires are not met due to the lack of respect for patient autonomy and the overall experience is therefore negative. The legal standards that are currently in place do not explicitly state what is expected of them, therefore creating confusion. In order to resolve this issue, Brody proposes a standard that includes the best-operationalized features of other models, one known as the conversation model. This model is very similar, yet has flaws such as extensive time requirements and justification of a conversation as receiving informed consent in respect to the law. He describes that informed consent is when a patient is reasonably informed and capable of participating in the medical decision making process. Reasonably informed can be described by using two

Patients come from different social, religious and educational backgrounds; therefore there is no single method towards obtaining consent. However the basic approach towards obtaining an informed consent defined by GMC includes assessing the patient’s condition, followed by consenting based on the patient’s knowledge and previous experiences. Patient should be allowed to weigh up the proposed investigation or treatment and the burden of any clinical and non-clinical issue relevant to them. The patient has the right to accept or to refuse the investigation or treatment (GMC,

All participants gave informed consent and were fully debriefed the strengths are the participants were only watching film clips of an event, not witnessing it in real life which could have been distressing .