Editorial
Consent issues in cardiology
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The era of "benign paternalism" is over. Clinicians are now required to ensure the active participation of individual patients in decisions relating to their treatment, and their education regarding risks and benefits of diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. Except in those rare cases where disclosure of risk is likely to cause serious harm, clinicians must now attempt to ensure that patients are fully informed.
The obtaining of appropriately informed and well documented consent
helps the process of developing trust between patient and clinician. Of
developing importance is the defensive role played by the same process,
when distressed or litigious patients suffer significant complications;
this is especially so where outcomes involve serious long term
consequences. In these cases, defective or inadequately documented
consent procedures may provide relatively straightforward routes to
successful claims. To succeed in law, claimants may have to do no more
than demonstrate, on a balance of probability, that they
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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Doyal, L
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KURBAAN, A. S, SMITH, S., MILLS, P. G
(2001). Consent in cardiac practice. Heart
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