PHI 2396 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Informed Consent, Kantian Ethics
14 Dec 2017
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Informed consent: refers to the action of an autonomous, informed person agreeing to submit to medical treatment or experimentation. Powerful notion that thinkers have justified by appealing to the principles of autonomy and beneficence. Canterbury v. spence: asserted that the adequacy of disclosure by physicians should be judged by what patients think is relevant to their situations. Competence: the ability to render decisions about medical interventions. *incompetent patients cannot give their informed consent and must rely on surrogates. Authority to decide medical issues is turned over to the physician or surrogates: therapeutic privilege withholding of relevant information of a patient from a patient when the physician believes disclosure would likely do harm. Laws regarding therapeutic privilege vary on when invoking it is justified. Some only allow it when disclosure would be extremely dangerous for the patient or when it would seriously diminish the patient"s autonomy. Others permit physicians far more leeway in deciding when to claim the privilege.
