Informed Consent in Medical Ethics, Regulation, and the Law

This book constructs a model of informed consent to surgery utilising empirical ethics and socio-legal analysis to bring together medical ethics, medical professional regulation, and medical law. The work includes an original socio-legal analysis of the models of informed consent to surgery present in court judgments and fitness to practise decisions. It constructs such a model using the empirical ethics methodology of reflexive balancing to both develop and challenge its construction. This unified model enables patients to make autonomous choices about surgery by encouraging healthcare professionals to draw upon the patient's subjective perspective, as well as objective viewpoints, when determining what information needs to be given to patients about treatment. It incorporates a focus on the importance of patients understanding that information and having the opportunity to reflect upon it. The outcome is a model of informed consent to surgery that speaks to medical ethics, medical professional regulation, and medical law, giving equivalent weight to the insights offered by each. The book will be an invaluable resource for students, academics and researchers working in the area of Medical Law and Ethics and Bioethics.

Louise Austin is a Lecturer in Law and Member of the Centre for Rights and Equality in Healthcare Law at the University of Leicester.

1. Finding a Unified Model of Informed Consent to Surgery 2. Medical Ethics: Contested Models of Informed Consent 3. Medical Professional Regulation: A Consistent Approach 4. Medical Law: A Shifting Model of Informed Consent 5. Fitness to Practise Decisions' Model of Informed Consent 6. Court Judgments Model of Informed Consent 7. A Unified Model of Informed Consent 8. Concluding Thoughts