Discussion of Conformed Consent

¶ … Consent Meaning and importance of informed consent Elements of full informed consent A Case Example Fictional scenario of a client/client issue 3 Meaning and importance of informed consent The process where rights of a patient to information about a certain treatment procedure are clearly and completely disclosed to a patient by the treating health care provider so that the patient is able to make voluntary choices to either accept or to refuse treatment is termed as informed consent (Appelbaum, 2007).

This term or the concept has its roots in the legal and the ethical rights of a patient that allows the patient to direct and choose what happens to his/her body during or after treatment as well as in the ethical duty that a physician has to involve the patient in the process health care by giving all relevant information to him/her. Thus, the moral and the legal premise of the patient autonomy forms the basis of the concept and the necessity of informed consent.

Informed consent is, therefore, necessary and assumes importance due to its inherent nature of human rights, in which a patient is the only one who would ultimately decide what happens to him or her. This is also important because the relatives and the close ones of the patient also have the ethical and moral right to know about the treatment procedures that are to be given and the consequences of such treatment procedures.

This has assumed the shape of a law where every clinical or therapy procedure must have a written consent from the patient who has been well informed about the procedures. Battery -- a form of assault, is eh legal term that is use when a medical practitioner or a health care provider fails to obtain an informed consent before conducting or performing a test or a procedure on a patient (Turnbull, 2009).

The Thesis Statement Informed consent is necessary for a patient to know what happens to him/her during or after treatment.

Elements of full informed consent While obtaining an informed consent, a health care provider or a physician require to disclose the nature of the medical decision or the procedure planned, the potential reasonable alternatives of the proposed intervention, the potential risks, the benefits and the uncertainties that are related to each of the alternatives, a complete assessment of the understanding of the situation by the patient about the information, as well as the final acceptance by the patient of the health intervention (Morgenstern, 2010).

A Case Example In the case of Duncan v. Scottsdale Med. Imaging, Ltd. (70 P.3d 435) 2003 that took place in the Supreme Court of Arizona, a patient wanted to know what kind of drug was being administered to her by a nurse. Fentanyl, a synthetic drug that is similar to morphine, was being given to her, and the patient was informed. After the patient refused to take the drug and asked to see the physician, she was told that the drug had been changed to morphine.

The patient gave her consent to treatment, but in reality, the drug was not changed. The court permitted a battery claim in this suit and following the Cobbs v. Grant case where it was ruled that there was a difference between a "lack of informed consent" and a "lack of consent," the court ruled in favor of the patient noting that appropriate consent was required by the patient in this case ("Duncan v. Scottsdale Med. Imaging, Ltd.," 2016).

Fictional scenario of a client/client issue In this fictional case let us assume the mane of the patient is David who is 65 years old and has been diagnosed to have first stage prostate cancer. When he comes for treatment at a hospital, the physician advises repeated chemotherapy for the patient indicating that this intervention can help cure the ailment very fast since the patient was in the early stages of the disease.

However the physician was also aware that this treatment procedure would lead to several side effects on David and given his age, these side effects could present a serious problem for him to continue a regular life. As the counselor, it is my duty to inform David of the procedure of chemotherapy and the chances and the likelihood of him getting cured by the process as well as the time period for the same. It is also necessary.