Are You A Victim of Medical Malpractice-Informed Consent

You should know what is “informed consent”. Informed consent is to be obtained from well informed patients about their own health care in making decisions on their own free will before the patient is subjected to serious treatment or operation. This is a legal obligation and it is the ethical right of the patient.

The patient should be aware of his rights and participate in the discussions and decisions. And he should be given the freedom to decide on:
1. the alternatives to the proposed operation or treatment.
2. the process and its nature
3. the risks involved
4. the extend of the uncertainties involved

And if needed repeat the explaining part in a simple layman’s language and make sure he understood and accepted the proposed course of treatment/operation.

The informed consent should be legally valid and the patient should be in a competent state of mind and his consent must be voluntary. In certain cases the patients feel helpless and vulnerable to any coercive tactics. And he or she should be made comfortable and relaxed before the consent form is signed.

The informed consent process should be a clear acceptance of the proposed treatment or surgery and on his/her own free will. To improve the confidence of the patient, he should be allowed to seek a second opinion. This action will make sure the informed consent is a very well informed comprehensive consent.

In some delicate cases, the Doctor may be constrained to withhold certain portion of the information. This is physician’s discretion in the best interest of the patient. This is also tailored information supplied to obtain the patient’s informed consent.