The HeLa incident at John Hopkins Medical Institute in the 1950’s highlighted the importance of informed consent in the medical field, it provides a strong example for the ethical and legal repercussions for disobeying the process and violating a patient’s unalienable human rights, and furthermore reinforces its need. Informed consent is the undeniable prerequisite for a patient to be fully informed of a procedure and all of its aspects. This process is a necessary and pragmatic approach to maintaining a positive relationship between a physician and their patient; a necessity in ensuring human autonomy and the preservation of human rights.
Informed consent was originally devised by the United Nations Committee in the Nuremberg Code to prevent future atrocities such as the Holocaust and Nazi experimentation on the Jews. The code is a set of ethics principles for researchers and physicians, it is aimed at ensuring that doctors do not take advantage of patients. The process is a legal and ethical requirement for all doctors …show more content…
Consent forms must include every aspect of the procedure and only the procedure, this applies to all tools and staff present; patients cannot give “An all-encompassing consent to the effect ‘I authorize so and so to carry out any test/procedure/surgery in the course of my treatment’ is not valid (Satyanarayana Rao, K H. Informed Consent: An Ethical Obligation or Legal Compulsion?).” Correspondingly, a nurse from another hospital that was not listed specifically to be a part of the physicians team and was given permission to aid in the procedure cannot be a part of the procedure. The doctor cannot let them, the patient would have to agree to it and sign off on it. Only when the patient is fully informed, and has understood the procedure, can they sign a consent form giving the doctor and his staff the ability to do the
Informed consent was originally devised by the United Nations Committee in the Nuremberg Code to prevent future atrocities such as the Holocaust and Nazi experimentation on the Jews. The code is a set of ethics principles for researchers and physicians, it is aimed at ensuring that doctors do not take advantage of patients. The process is a legal and ethical requirement for all doctors …show more content…
Consent forms must include every aspect of the procedure and only the procedure, this applies to all tools and staff present; patients cannot give “An all-encompassing consent to the effect ‘I authorize so and so to carry out any test/procedure/surgery in the course of my treatment’ is not valid (Satyanarayana Rao, K H. Informed Consent: An Ethical Obligation or Legal Compulsion?).” Correspondingly, a nurse from another hospital that was not listed specifically to be a part of the physicians team and was given permission to aid in the procedure cannot be a part of the procedure. The doctor cannot let them, the patient would have to agree to it and sign off on it. Only when the patient is fully informed, and has understood the procedure, can they sign a consent form giving the doctor and his staff the ability to do the