On The Patients' Right To Know

With the development of medical science, more and more new technologies are put into use in the field of medicine. While these new technologies bring goodness to patients, they involve great medical risks and high medical expenditures. In recent years, people begin to pay attention to the patients' right to know . They want to get knowledge about their diseases, medical measures, expenditures and risks involved. With the perfect information, they can make relatively advisable decisions from selected choices. The patients' right to know is a decisive factor for protecting the interests of patients, and sometime it plays a crucial role in saving their lives.Though it is debatable that medical behaviors should lie in the acknowledgement of hospitals and admission from patients, many nations have explicitly expressed that patients enjoy the right to know in controlled domain and hospitals have obligations to acknowledge related information to them. In China, many laws and regulations have made stipulations in this field. However, the application of these stipulations have faced two main problems. First, there is absence of basic law in this field. Second, there are many conflicts and undefined factors in application. To specify, these are the inconsistency in its scope, unclear definition in subjects of right and obligation, low applicability in acknowledgement, etc.This thesis gives an exhaustive illustration on concept, establishment, characteristics, scope, enforcement, infringement of the patients' right to know. Meantime, the author analyzes the status quoof legislation in this field in China and explores the main problems existing in its application. To end up, the author puts forward some feasible solutions and suggestions to its consummation.The thesis is consisted of five parts. Part one illustrates the concept, establishment, and characteristics of the patients' right to know. Part two attempts to define its scope from the point of view of medical therapy. Part three explores the execution of this right from analyzing its subjects, modes and principles of acknowledgement, standards in getting useful information. Part four concentrates on such issues as the nature of behavior, legal responsibility, and infringement in which the author illustrates the subject of responsibility, essentials in tort, illegal behaviors, consequences of damages, and compensation for damages. Part five mainly probes into the problems it faces in China, and brings forward feasible solutions for perfecting the patients' right to know.By tentative study in the patients' right to know, the author sincerely wishes that her research will be beneficial to the consummation of the legislation on the patients' right to know in China.