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Informed Consent and the Nurse
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2021
Extract
Informed consent, as the courts define it, is the patient's right to know, before agreeing to a procedure, what the procedure entails — the hazards, the possible complications, and expected results of the treatment. The patient must understand any reasonable alternatives to the proposed procedure, including, in most cases, the results that can be predicted from nontreatment. The choice among alternative risks involves value judgments falling outside the scope of medical decision-making, including the patient's views on social, economic, and other personal factors of which health professionals cannot possibly be aware.
The negotiations necessary to obtain the patient's informed consent are the responsibility of the person who will perform the procedure. If a physician is in charge, the physician may delegate the discussion to another but retains the legal responsibility to make sure the patient understands.
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- Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 1981
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