Informed Consent Of Patients—The Study Of Preoperative Signature

Nowadays, under the influence of the enhancement of Chinese people’s consciousness of rights and law, the rapid development of medical technology, lead to high expectation for the doctors but the inadequate medical care system, a gap between the doctors and patients gradually developed and the crisis of confidence between them is aggravating increasingly, resulting in more strained patient-doctor relationships. Besides, the contradiction is becoming intensified. Meanwhile, in recent years, the cases of medical disputes have increased in number, among which the cases involving disputes over the informed consent right also increased. The resulting medical conflicts and disputes became the major social sensitive issues which the government and people were concerned about. Easing tensions of the patient-doctor relationships, reducing medical disputes and building a harmonious health care system become a major social problem and livelihood issues which need to be solved urgently. The protection of implementation of the right to information was an important means to alleviate contradiction between doctors and patients. Being one of the important medical procedures, the patient’s informed consent is essential as surgery has great damage to the body, and iatrogenic diseases or injuries caused by the surgery occur frequently. Under normal circumstances, as pre-surgery procedures, preoperative signature plays an important role of informing patients and getting informed consent from patients in the whole surgery procedure. On one hand, the preoperative signature means the patients have rights to dominant their health; on the other hand it is the manifestation to implement the right of informed consent. Therefore, when exceptions of preoperative signature occur, the commitment responsibility and the implementation of patient’s right to informed consent are of great importance. Therefore, this paper attempts to discuss the relevant issues about the patients’ informed consent---the preoperative signature system.In the first part of this paper, the author used the method of case study to discuss the informed consent. As the theoretical basis of preoperative signature system, the legal nature of informed consent must be explicit so that it can provide the theoretical groundwork for further study of preoperative signature behavior. In the next part, after the discussion of legal nature of informed consent, the author focused on the legal nature of preoperative signature, to pinpoint the theoretical roots of preoperative signature system. At the same time, the author analyzed the subjects of preoperative signature from the practical point of view, pinpointing every legal principle and ethical basis of subjects and the matters needing to be paid attention in the process of preoperative signature. The author focused on the situations in which the surgery can be performed without patients’ agreement, such as the emergent circumstances, compulsory medical service, giving-up behavior from patients as well as the abuse of power and their respective laws and legal basis and the problems to undertake the responsibility in case of surgical risks.The importance of power specification under exceptional circumstances Therefore, in the last part of this paper, the author put forward some recommendations for further specification of signature system.In this paper, the author attempted to use the method of literature research, combining four major case studies and systematic research methods to discuss. The author put forward some humble opinions, hoping to ease the contradiction between doctors and patients, improve the medical quality and achieve the win-win benefits between doctors and patients, and promote the development of the harmonious relationship between doctors and patients.