Benefits Of Informed Consent

Informed consent is relatively new in the world of modern medicine and is still a highly debatable topic. Patient autonomy, or informed consent, is the right of a patient to be informed by their physician(s) or health care provider about their current well-being and having a say in their options for treatment. Until informed consent was required, it was the physician or health care provider’s decisions that are trusted by the patient and their family to benefit the patient. One thing that I found to be interesting was that in the past, information about a patient’s current medical condition and treatment could be withheld in order to keep them with a positive attitude and hopeful. This was interesting because it is contradictory to was informed

To this day, your doctor aids the patient in understanding their medical condition and treatment, but ultimately, the patient is the one making the decision. For this highly debated topic, I will be agreeing with yes side because I believe that patient autonomy/informed consent is very important when it comes to making rational decisions about your health. I believe that Dan Brock and Steven Warman’s argument not only supports my decision, they also had very strong arguments to why patient autonomy is crucial in the medical field. On the contrary, Gordon Stirrat and Robin Gill say that whether the physician or patient makes a decision, all decisions should be respected based on a mutual level of trust between all

As previously mentioned, patients had essentially no role in their medical decisions until about a couple decades ago. People believed that this was okay because they trusted their doctor to make the right choice of treatment. Patient autonomy and shared-decision making has recently become prevalent in the medical field which allows the patients and doctors to collaborate about the best option possible. This is a very good thing because it allows the patient and the physician to make a unified decision that is acceptable to both party’s values and beliefs. This type of decision making is only made possible because it allows the physician to contribute their wide range of experience and knowledge and the patient to contribute their aims/goals and values. For example; while I was growing up, I always hear the name Dr. Veslik. That name never meant anything to me until my mom told me that he has been treating my family since she was a little girl and was there in the room when I was born. While collaborating, the physician verbally weighs the risks and benefits of each option which allows the patient to come to a conclusion for their best treatment option. Stirrat and Gill have a different belief when it comes to