Review
Ethical, professional, and legal obligations in clinical
practice: a series of discussion topics for postgraduate medical
education
Topic 2: consent and legal
competence
D M Gore
Craigavon Area
Hospital, Northern Ireland
Correspondence to: Mr D M Gore, Department of Surgery, University of Liverpool, 5th Floor UCD Building, Daulby Street, Liverpool L69 3GA, UK dmgore@liverpool.ac.uk
Submitted 24 May 2000;
Accepted 2 August 2000
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
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Introduction |
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This is the second discussion topic in a series of five dealing with ethical, professional, and legal obligations of clinical practice. Junior doctors tend to lack confidence in these subjects, and thus I organised a series of informal discussions in our surgical unit on which these articles are based. The sessions were prepared with reference to non-academic literature readily available from the General Medical Council (GMC) and the medical defence organisations. While our unit dealt with these issues from a surgical perspective, the obligations of clinical practice apply to all practitioners and the series could be easily modified for other clinical specialties.
When a patient is able to comprehend neither the nature, risks, nor alternatives of a procedure, that patient is incapable of giving informed consent and is considered legally incompetent. These difficulties may arise in adults in acute or chronic confusional states and in children.
A adult patient's autonomy
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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Jain, A K, Chattopadhyay, I, Kallat, A
(2002). Ethical, professional, and legal obligations in clinical practice Author's reply. Postgrad. Med. J.
78: 61-62
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