Informed consent in ethics usually refers to the idea that a person must be fully informed about and understand the potential benefits and risks of their choice of treatment. An uninformed person is at risk of mistakenly making a choice not reflective of his or her values or wishes. It does not specifically mean the process of obtaining consent, nor the specific legal requirements, which vary from place to place, for capacity to consent. Patients can elect to make their own medical decisions, or can delegate decision-making authority to another party. If the patient is incapacitated, laws around the world designate different processes for obtaining informed consent, typically by having a person appointed by the patient or their next of kin make decisions for them. The value of informed consent is closely related to the values of autonomy and truth telling.
A correlate to "informed consent" is the concept of informed refusal.
Read more about this topic: Medical Ethics
Famous quotes containing the words informed and/or consent:
“It is a great mistake to suppose that clever, imaginative children ... should content themselves with the empty nonsense which is so often set before them under the name of Children’s Tales. They want something much better; and it is surprising how much they see and appreciate which escapes a good, honest, well- informed papa.”
—E.T.A.W. (Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm)
“In making the great experiment of governing people by consent rather than by coercion, it is not sufficient that the party in power should have a majority. It is just as necessary that the party in power should never outrage the minority.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)