Informed Consent
For educational purposes, trainee doctors have performed pelvic exams on unconscious women. The subjects are those undergoing surgery for unrelated causes, and they were rarely informed the examination had occurred. This practice was forbidden in the United States and the United Kingdom, which now require the patient to consent in advance. The practice still continues in Canada according to a study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. The director of the Medical Health program at the University of Manitoba claimed in response that the revised 2006 guidelines of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada forbade pelvic exams without consent, though the original impetus for the study of pelvic exams and consent was an incident in 2007.
Read more about this topic: Pelvic Examination
Famous quotes containing the words informed and/or consent:
“If people are informed they will do the right thing. It’s when they are not informed that they become hostages to prejudice.”
—Charlayne Hunter-Gault (b. 1942)
“It is possible that the contemplation of cruelty will not make us humane but cruel; that the reiteration of the badness of our spiritual condition will make us consent to it.”
—Lionel Trilling (1905–1975)