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Green Bay Medical Malpractice Attorney
The Standard of Informed Consent
Whether they’re conducting research or treating a patient, doctors and other health care providers are held to the legal standard of informed consent. This means that you as a patient have the right to make every choice about your own health and body. Before a doctor, nurse or therapist can give you any medication or put you through any procedure, they must explain what will or may happen and obtain your permission.
What You Should Know
Being informed means much more than knowing the name of the medication you will be given, or the mechanics of the procedure you will go through. Being informed means:
- Knowing all of the risks involved
- Understanding the side effects you may experience
- Accepting the probability that the procedure will work correctly
Your doctor should offer this information automatically, but if he or she does not, you have every right to ask as many questions as you have.
Special Circumstances
If you are unconscious or too incapacitated to make choices about your health, then a family member or whoever you have chosen to make decisions in that situation will step in. The rule of informed consent applies to that person in the same ways they would apply to you. It does not matter if a health care provider thinks they know better or is confident in their abilities – you or the person legally designated to make decisions for you have the final say.
The only exception to this rule is in the case of emergency health care. If you need some sort of procedure immediately in order to save your life, informed consent is not necessary.
If a health care provider has given you medication or a procedure without your permission or without fully informing you, you need an experienced Green Bay medical malpractice attorney.
Contact Green Bay
medical malpractice attorneys Habush, Habush and Rottier at (920) 437-0900.