Truth telling and informed consent: is "primum docere" the new motto of clinical practice?
Autonomy has become in many countries a key concept in the patient-physician relationship, leaving the old paternalistic medical attitude out of the realm of common good clinical practice. Consequently, the validity of the informed consent procedure which is related to any medical intervention, should imply that the information given is true. Raising the question as such obliges us to consider the truth not for itself but in regard to the validity of the consent to a medical intervention. Although a clinical approach reveals that loyalty should guide the patient-physician relationship, there are still some situations in which informed consent and truth telling may be controversial: in some circumstances, the physician should or may not tell the truth, in others he can simply forget to tell.
Byk
Christian
C
International Association of Law, Ethics and Science. christian.byk@wanadoo.fr
D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent / Q000941:ethics*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D017009:Professional Autonomy; D014342:Truth Disclosure / Q000941:ethics*