Informed consent: patient's right or patient's duty?
The rule that a patient should give a free, fully-informed consent to any therapeutic intervention is traditionally thought to express merely a right of the patient against the physician, and a duty of the physician towards the patient. On this view, the patient may waive that right with impunity, a fact sometimes expressed in the notion of a right not to know. This paper argues that the rule also expresses a duty of the patient towards the physician and a right of the physician against the patient. The argument turns, first, on the truism that a physician has no obligation to commit a battery, or unauthorized touching, and, second, on the thesis that a patient necessarily cannot consent to something that is unknown to him. The conclusion is drawn that a patient is not free to receive treatment voluntarily without knowledgeably authorizing it.
D032882:Comprehension; D030881:Disclosure; D026689:Ethical Analysis; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D028681:Moral Obligations; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D010349:Patient Compliance; D028701:Patient Rights; D010361:Patients; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D018570:Risk Assessment