Essay On Informed Consent

I believe that it is safe to say you have hit the nail on the head! The most prominent dilemma of cell tissue and scientific discovery is that of responsibility on part of the medical community. Prior to the assigned reading, I was under the impression that informed consent required this information to be communicated to patients. Through the reading materials, it appears that it is part of informed consent, however it is very generic and unclear. A moral physician would assuredly properly discuss the removal of tissue and cells, and reason for such removal. The patient would be well informed. Thus, the patient could rationally decide whether to consent to the donation or not. I hold that this is done in an ethical and informed manner. It is the possible future uses that cause the problem. Unfortunately, I cannot agree that this discrepancy would go against the initial physician, as some patients may contend. As was discussed previously on the case of Tarasoff v. …show more content…
The scope of medicine is always changing. The HeLa cell line demonstrated that as it broke ground for a whole new concept of DNA that was previously unknown. Using this material for one thing, which the patient agreed to, can sometimes accidently result in a completely different discovery, one that the patient did not agree to. In this case it is hard to state where the error is, if at all. Perhaps the suggestion of tiered consent offered by Mello and Wolf (2010) is the best way to approach this subject matter. This form of consent designates the level of communication on future use, should a new possibility arise that may not explicitly fit the original design. The problem, as you alluded to, is that informed consent currently does not inform as well as it should for future possibilities, and could be implemented better. In a world of rapid medical advancement, this policy needs to progress with