A Study On The Patient's Right Of Informed Consent

The patient's right of informed consent means the patient have right to know andaccept the treatments, exactly speaking, the doctor should inform the patient of therelevant risk and other accessible treatments in detail before he carries on a surgicaloperation and gets the patient's agreement. There is no fixed conclusion of this study athome or aboard. Additionally, the relevant contents provided in the current law of ourcountry are also not explicit, as results to the increasing disputes between doctors andpatients. This thesis goes further into the patient's right of informed consent bycomparison and documents. The thesis consists of five parts in addition to theintroduction and the conclusion. They are taken up respectively as the following. The introduction shows that the study of the patient's right of informed consentmakes a great sense not only to establish the right and duty between the doctor and thepatient but also to settle the dispute between them. At present, both the educational andpragmatic circles hold various opinions on this problem. It seems difficult for them toreach unanimity. This thesis goes further into the study of this problem in theperspective of civil law and medical practice so as to provide some suggestions toeducational circles and lawmaking. The first part is the generalization of the right of informed consent. It's widelyaccepted that right of informed consent was established and developed by Americanjudicial precedents during the period of late 1950s to the 1960s. The right of informedconsent consists of the right to know and the right to agree. The former means the rightto request, while the latter means the formation of the right. It developed in a profoundsocial background: the development of human right movement, theconsumers'movement and the patients'movement, the materialization of therelationship between doctors and patients and the response of the bureaucratizing ofmedical system and the transformation of medical mode from biomedical mode tobiology-psychology-society mode. After the right of informed consent was defined inthe Nuremberg laws, many related international organizations, countries and areasprotected it by legislation.The second part expounds the patient's right to know, which means the patient hasthe right to be informed of his or her condition, treatment and the expectedconsequence of the treatment. The main body of the patient's right to know is thepatient, but his or her guardian or attorney can substitute in a particular situation. Thecontent of the right to know consists of knowing and understanding. Its object is therelated medical information, which is the shared object of patient's right to know andthe doctor's explanatory duty. The object involves the followings: before the patientagrees; during the treatment; persuading the patient into transferring hospitals. Therealization of this right relies on how the doctor fulfills his explanatory duty.According to the object of the right to know and different types of the doctor'sexplanatory duties, the standard of the doctor's explanatory duty are the two: to limitthe proper patient and the medical level. The third part elaborates the patient's right to agree, which means the patient hasthe right to accept the treatment or not, after obtaining the enough information on histreatment offered by the doctor. The main body of the right to agree is the patient, andit can also be his guardian or attorney on a special occasion. Its object is the treatmentto be taken or to be chosen offered by the doctor; its content consists of the right toagree, the right to refuse and the right to choose. The valid elements of agreement arethe following: the main body has the ability to agree; he or she understands its content;agreed benefit from the encroachment is legal; the agreement is willful; the agreementis on the spot. According to the patient's age and his mental condition, the right toagree can be divided into total ability to agree, limit ability to agree and lack of abilityto agree. When the patient is un...