Informed Consent

Did John Williamson give informed consent for his surgery?

"The ambiguities in communication and the unspoken motives of all participants is, current research suggests, common to the medical setting"

Understanding informed consent involves theoretical/conceptual (in law and in philosophy) and empirical issues

Legal Issues

Conceptual Questions

Practical Questions

Freedman: Consent and Capacity

The Right to Consent

Research vs. Treatment

The Right to Consent (again)

Rights and Duties

"Informed" Consent Revisited

"The claim has been made…that ‘fully informed consent’ is a goal which we can never achieve, but towards which we must strive"

 

Reductio ad absurdum

Freedman on "Fully Informed" Consent

One Possible Response

"…it is not surprising to find doctors who claim that since they cannot fully inform patients, they will tell them nothing, but instead will personally assume the responsibility for assuring the subject’s safety"

Freedman’s Response

"The proper test of whether a given piece of information needs to be given, then, is whether the physician, knowing what he does about the patient/subject, feels that the patient/subject would want to know this before making up his mind."

Therapy vs. Research

Challenging the Difference Between Research and Therapy

Must the Patient be Informed?

What is a Responsible Choice?

Some Choices are Clearly Not Responsible...

Dilemma

The Dilemma of Informed Consent

1) We must require that a choice is responsible for consent to be valid

2) But if we require that a choice is responsible, this presupposes a set of standards by which the responsibility of a choice is to be judged

So, who sets the standards? (paternalism)

Between the Horns of the Dilemma

Responsibility: a Dispositional Characteristic

Consent Must also be Voluntary

Consent and the Incompetent

Proxy Consent