Informed Consent Of Patients

In the past, a doctor practiced in China was esteemed as a father for his skills and unique social status, under this background, the patient just had to absolutely obey the doctor's decision. But along with reformation and opening-up in China, the patient's right of informed consent, stemming from the right of self-determination in the West, has turned into a question that requires keen attention in the field of therapeutic treatment and legal application. Informed consent implies that the patient is not a therapeutic object but the subject during therapeutic procedure. As the medical information holder, the doctors have the obligations to get patients informed of their disease for helping them make the decision. Based on discussion on the right of informed consent and the corresponding obligation of a doctor in this paper, the author hopes the right of informed consent would be further considered .The First Chapter discusses the history of informed consent. The relationship between doctor and patient has developed into guidance-cooperation model from activity-passivity model, which was directed by paternalism. Many countries have enacted the law of informed consent. The right also has achieved great strides in China in recent years.The Second Chapter is about the Informing Obligation of doctor. The relationship between doctor and patient is based on a medical contract. And the informing obligationthus is a contractual obligation. There are three standards about the informing obligation of doctor, i.e., reasonable physician standard, reasonable patient standard and subjective standard. The reasonable patient standard is the best one to meet the need of fact. The content of informing must be good enough to ensure a patient to make reasonable decision but not to be an excessive burden of doctor. The Third Chapter tells the important condition and form of informed consent. The right endowed with patient is not to hope patient to go along with the decision of doctor but to make reasonable decisions himself. There are two elements to meet need of informed consent: Competence to make up one's own decision and one's wish to make such a decision. A patient may have various ways to carry out his right of informed consent, for example, oral or written permission etc.The Fourth Chapter analyses many difficulties in practice. In most cases such decisions are made by family members. It is a must to balance the decisions of family and right of informed consent. There are many other factors that are also obstacles in the practice of such rights.The last Chapter delivers a discussion on the legal effect and responsibility of informed consent, and relevant legal provisions in Chinese laws about the right. The author believes that it is necessary to enact an independent law of patient's right for the purpose of consummating legal protection on the right of patient.