You may be asked exceptions to obtain consent for a medical procedure and what information is necessary for a patient to consent.
Exceptions where consent from the patient may not occur.
Under certain circumstances, there are exceptions to the consent rule. The 2 most common exceptions you need to know are:
- An emergency situation in which medical care is needed immediately to prevent serious or irreversible harm to the person.
- Incompetence in which someone is unable to give permission for testing or treatment. There are different situations here depending on whether you are treating an adult or a child.
Disclosure of necessary information.
In order for you to give your informed consent for treatment or tests, the doctor needs to give (or disclose) to you enough information so that you can make an informed decision. It is therefore not necessary or expected that you would receive every detail of the test, treatment, or procedure. This information depending on the actual procedure would include the risks including the likelihood (or probability) of each of the risks and the benefits, and likelihood (or probability) of benefit.
All additional information that a patient asks for must be given freely.
The information and all questions you have should be fully explained, in language, manner, and terminology that is appropriate. A useful mnemonic is DEBSOC.
D = Description of the medical condition and procedure that warrants.
E = Explanation of the proposed exam, procedure, or treatment.
B = Benefits. (Including likelihood of success.)
S = Side-effects (Including likelihood of failure or problems.)
O = Other alternatives.
C = Costs.
In a separate article, we will discuss the issue of capacity, Bolam, Gillick and Montgomery rulings.