Informed Consent

As per Beal & Lewis, 2014 Informed consent is a process of education and the correct education is a key to the ability to provide consent.

The U.S. Healthcare System continues to evolve and develop delivery strategies of affordable high-quality health services to all individuals. Striving to make available superior advances in U.S. health, healthcare providers delivery options, solutions and/or treatments for the American populace.

Informed consent is supposed to show that the patient has been informed of the possible risks or consequences, typically for treatment they are agreeing to receive from a doctor. A person might be faced with giving informed consent in research settings, specialized treatments, and/or routine appointments with any health care provider. In the medical field physicians must obtain informed consent from every patient/patient representative in order to treat the patient without leaving themselves open to a lawsuit for negligence.

An informed consent is the sovereign act by the patient or a research subject to authorize a healthcare professional to perform a medical procedure. It means that patients must be briefed on all the goals of the procedure, the methods to be used by the physician and all the risks that they might be subjected to while undergoing therapies/treatments. De Bord (2014), defines informed consent as “Informed consent is the process by which the treating health care provider discloses appropriate information to a competent patient so that the patient may make a voluntary choice to accept or refuse treatment” (as cited in Appelbaum, 2007). In this paper, I will argue that Jay Katz’s claim for the lack of genuine informed consent in healthcare field is firm by demonstrating and buttressing his claim. I will also pinpoint how Jay Katz’s argument is consistent with the medical professionals’ code of ethics

The standard of care is the attention you would give to any one of your patients in similar situations. A patient’s best interest is the only one to be considered. An appropriate standard of care would be reached in this case study if you would treat her emergency situation as you would any other, regardless of circumstance and act on that accordingly. There should be no favoritism of judgment in your standard of care. (Caldwell & Connor, 2012, pg. 27).

This paper is a representation of two separate healthcare professions; a paramedic (Roscoe) and a registered nurse’s (Gale) perspective of the ethics of informed consent. Informed consent is a familiar and ethically important component of healthcare, grounded by principles and values that provide and maintain professional standards. The following will discuss and analyse the similarities and differences between the two professionals from the AV resource. Present international and national frameworks that influence decision making as well as the individual impact that the Code of Ethics provides in moral dilemmas will be examined. Contrasts of legalities versus ethics will also be explored in regards to vulnerable patients. Furthermore the

The APA ethical guidelines help to ensure that all psychological research maintains the integrity that it does not do harm or conflicts with the majority of the human populations moral ethical codes. However, in some situations the APA ethical guidelines must be viewed as just that: guidelines. If a study has the potential to benefit humanity as a whole and does not result in the permanent or irreparable harm to a human being then some guidelines must be permitted to be stretched or even broken in the interest of human advancement and scientific progression. After all the goal and responsibility of a psychologist is to enhance our understanding of human behavior as well as to find ways to use this information to better society and humanity

Steps are taken to maintain the confidentiality of data through digital signatures by the personnel and through the computer security assurance using the key coding and unlinking of the data.

Informed consent is a formal agreement that a patient/member signs to give permission for a medical procedure or program after an explanation of risks and benefits are given to the patient/member (Merriam-Webster.com, 2015). Another definition for informed consent is, “tenet requiring that competent patients, who are free to consent, be sufficiently informed and be the principal decision makers in their own care” (Brannigan, 2001).

The code of ethics outlines that “psychologists respect the rights of individuals to privacy, confidentiality, and self-determination” (APA, 2016, p. 4). It also stipulates that psychologists remain cognizant that special safeguards may be necessary to protect the rights and welfare of persons or communities whose vulnerabilities impair their independent decision making. Psychologists are aware of and respect cultural, individual, and role differences such as race, gender, age, socioeconomic status, religion, and language and consider these factors when working with the differing groups. Additionally, in embracing clients’ rights and dignity, psychologists try to eliminate the effect of biases and prejudices based on individual and role differences and not overlook such activities.

Fundamental to healthcare shared decision-making is the doctrine of informed consent. This shared decision-making is one of the most advocated methodologies in the healthcare treatment decision. Shared decision-making is a method in which the doctor communicates to his patient all the sufficient risk and benefit information on all types of medical treatments and alternative medical treatments. The patient then shares with his doctor all his personal information that might make a particular medical treatment (or a side-effect from it) more (or less) bearable than other medical treatments. Then, the doctor and his patient in tandem use all the information to arrive at a joint decision on the medical treatment. In order to be actively involved in their healthcare treatment decisions, patients must receive sufficient information from their doctors. In this particular role, doctors play the part of teachers or educators for their patients.

Informed consent is one of the initial steps in the therapy and any medical practice. According to ACA Code of Ethics (2014) A 2 b counselors should inform the client regarding to “purposes, goals, techniques, procedures, limitations, potential risks, and benefits of services; the counselor’s qualifications, credentials, relevant experience, and approach to counseling; continuation of services upon the incapacitation or death of the counselor; the role of technology; and other pertinent information”. Clients have a right to decide to next step in light to this information. Personally, I do not have much experience with informed consent, because confidentially still is upsetting issue in my country, Turkey. Except the mental health field, it is not commonly performed

Assessing ethical concerns is of key importance in planning, performing, and evaluating research, and includes four key issue areas of protection from harm, informed consent, right to privacy, and professional code of APA ethics (Cozby & Bates, 2012) These four areas of ethical issues must be considered whenever research involves human participants. Another important area for the researcher to review relative to ethical issues in human research is the importance of gaining an understanding of the internal review board (IRB). The purpose of this paper is to examine ethical concerns, and provide a brief review of the IRB, including when completion of an IRB application is required.

Informed consent is a process by which the participants voluntarily give their consent to be enrolled in the trail. This requires the person obtaining the consent to be able to clearly explain the nature and goals of the research, and all other essential information that the participant may want to know in a manner that promotes participants understanding. This is the key to informed consent and will require

I too would agree that, another ethical principle that is important for participants in a research study is in informed consent. Not only to be consent for the research study and medical treatment and or testing during the study, but what the gather data would be used for. Great post, thanks for sharing.