People who require invasive medical care put their lives in the hands of medical professionals. They expect that doctors should be competent and should act in their best interests. While that is true most of the time, malpractice does occur.
For example, surgeons sometimes leave items behind inside patients’ bodies. Doctors who fail to check a patient’s records properly when prescribing a new medication can make major mistakes as a result. Anyone beginning a new course of treatment typically needs to give their doctor informed consent, especially when the procedure is elective, invasive or experimental. When exploring whether or not a doctor met requirements for informed consent, the three factors below are important considerations.
Awareness of risks and success rates
Patients often defer to their doctor’s knowledge. However, they may give a treatment decision more careful consideration when doctors inform them in depth of the potential side effects. Especially when surgical procedures or medications have a strong association with specific side effects, patients have a right to know those details before making a choice. They also deserve to know about success and failure rates. Doctors who gloss over that information or do not provide it at all may not have received informed consent from the patient.
Information about alternatives
Typically, doctors proposing treatment plans need to educate their patients about other options available. That may include the risk of doing nothing. Patients can then weigh all of the options available based on the degree of risk and the likelihood of success and choose the treatment plan that they deem most appropriate. If doctors don’t explain the alternatives and only tell patients about one treatment action, the patient may not have been able to provide informed consent.
Age and state of mind
The final key considerations when evaluating claims about informed consent are how old the patient was and their state of mind at the time that they consented to treatment. Someone already under the influence of opioid medications or anesthesia is not in full control of their cognitive faculties.
People with certain mental health challenges or developmental disabilities may lack the ability to provide informed consent. The same is true of minors. Their parents may consent on their behalf, but the parents should receive the same information that adult patients receive when considering their care options.
Simply signing a document does not mean that a patient has given informed consent. Reviewing the conduct of a healthcare professional before treatment with a skilled legal professional can help patients determine if medical malpractice related to informed consent may have occurred.