Informed Consent Essay, Research Paper

Informed Consent

A legal document that has been written and processed through the courts is called Informed Consent. An Informed Consent Document requires that doctors give all patients important information about his/her own procedure before the surgery or the treatment takes place.

The following four items are important factors in the Informed Consent: 1. the nature of the treatment/surgery, 2. the risks, 3. the advantages, and 4. the possibilities. However, having access to legal documentation allows doctors to be protected and to have legal liability, and it could also protect them against any harm that may occur to the patient.

The Federal Policy for the Protection for Human Subjects was adopted in 1991. The policy was made to ensure an unformed system of safety in all departments and Federal places. Informed Consent provides safety to the people. For instance, patients have the right to know the procedures before hand. If the procedures include information that benefits relevant risks or uncertainties then the patient decides what suits him/her the best. Informed Consent, however, does not only protect the patients, but the doctors as well.

However, today there are many new potential impacts that come from recent activities going on in medical research and in the scientific community. Day after day, medical researchers come closer and closer to capturing a way to cure viruses. For example, there is now a flu shot that can be diagnosed. Nevertheless, because this is a whole new generation, there are many more new ways to cure sicknesses. Nothing to this nature, was available to people who had viruses not to long ago.

The function of Informed Consent is served within the community and protection for the people and the doctors. This is so that people know exactly what procedures will occur and so that the doctors will be protected, and do not get sued for not telling the patients all the procedures that will occur. This is called a warning for the patients and protection for the doctors.

Informed consent, affects scientific research by given the scientist the chance to ask people if they want to go through a test first. Money is often offered by the scientist and this ables people to see if they want to have an experiment performed on their body. However, delivery of certain medical practice are often affected because people may refuse medical treatment. If a person does not agree with what is going to happen the doctors do not have a say.

The responsibility of scientists are humans and that they know exactly what is going to happen before the testing occurs. Scientists have to explain what is going to happen during the testing and what side effects or benefits that may come about when the testing is over. The Legal steps that they been implemented during this process are that the Principal of investigators and CO-investigators names are on the consent paper. The research project can be performed when everything is fully understood and completed when the consent signing has taken place. However, the name of the study should be on the top of every page, a witness should be present upon the signing of the form. The information that the patient needs to know is the purpose, procedure, risk, benefit, and review. After this information is given, the procedure needs to be answered. The last and most important thing is that a copy must be given to the researcher.

The role of the individual in a case conformed consent is to protect themselves from harm. However, the experiment, has the right to know what is going to happen before it occurs. If one does not know what they are getting themselves into, the outcome of both doctors and patients could be in danger and most cases the doctors and the patients are sued.