One the most vexed questions in healthcare involves patient autonomy, and the extent to which patients are able to make decisions about their healthcare. It may not always be the case that patients will be able to understand the information that they have been given and decide what advice regarding their treatment they should follow. The question of autonomy and the extent to which patients are able to give informed consent to the treatment being recommended to them becomes more difficult as their health deteriorates. These issues will be explored in this chapter.
The idea that patients need to be asked to consent to the medical and healthcare treatment that is being proposed to them is reasonably modern. After all, the healthcare practitioner is the professional, the person with the expertise to decide what treatments are needed by the patient in order to return to health. If a patient needs an operation to remove a tumour, they are expected to accept the surgeon’s advice and have the operation. The Hippocratic Oath states nothing about asking patients for their informed consent before the physician prescribes medication or performs surgery. Despite this, it has generally become accepted that, because patients are autonomous, self-determining human persons, they need to be fully informed of the treatment options available to them, and to decide, having assessed the available information and taken appropriate advice, what treatments they will undertake. This is the recognition that a pathway to health will involve the active participation of patients – that is, it is not simply a matter of patients passively receiving treatment. The whole person needs to be involved in recovery to full health.
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