Informed Consent: Importance, Legal Requirements, And Confidentiality

The Process of Informed Consent in the Medical Field

Question:

Discuss about the Ethics and Professional Practices for Sociology of Health.

Informed consent is a practice where process understanding of risk and the benefit of treatment is concerned. In case of a medical field, a doctor provides the information about the particular treatment and wants to know whether the patient will want to continue the process or not. The process is a kind of wish that the patients are willing to depend on in that issue. The benefits of the treatment may be positive or negative but the consent of doing such treatment is required to be addressed at the initial stage. “The issue of informed consent has been discussed and debated by a number of researches within the medical field. It is rather surprising then that mainstream medical sociology has, by and large, posed very few questions and has not contributed much in the way of theoretical or empirical insight to this issue" (Corrigan, 2003, p. 769). The process of the voluntary informed system for the treatment and the medical operations involves some legal works that needs to be done by the concerned officer. The medical officer must have taken the consent of the patients along with the family members as well. This consent taking policy is the safest option to operate the situation as the blame or adverse consequences are not faced through this process.

Mostly, in case of larger possible risks, doctors are willing to take informed consent from the patient or the patient's relatives. In most of the cases, consents are provided for the benefit of the patient but if there are adverse possibilities then doctors inform the concerned family before the operation has been done. There are some possible steps that need to be followed by the doctor before making informed consent. At first, the possible risk and benefit of the treatment have been discussed by the medical officer. Then there are some otheroptions as well and through this process, alternatives are also delivered and also stated are the consequences of that alternative process. After that, patients have the opportunity to ask some question regarding the treatment or what is the treatment style and how long the process will continue (Bošnjak & Maruši? 2012). Then, enough time will be provided to the patients so that the discussion can be placed with the family. Patients need to talk to their family before taking such big decision of their life and during the meeting, they can take examples of other people, who come up with such situations and have a good life now. So after the permutation and combination of the treatment, final decision or consent will get shared with the doctor.

There are legal procedures as well for the development of informed consent. There are some types of communications that resulted as legal requirements. As asserted by Grace & DRN (2017), the list of information that doctors provide to patients are all considered as the legal requirements that are needed before the treatment. The patient has to accept the legal procedures and only the doctor processes the treatment. There are some laws that are not in sectional number but in form of verbal and written form and has to get signed by the patient. Information are sometimes overlooked by the patients' family and thus they build the problem for the doctors and associates.

Legal Procedures Involved in the Development of Informed Consent

On the other hand viewpoint of the doctor is very clinical, as they have to treat the patient for the betterment of their benefit. Initial things like delivering the paper to the higher authority, getting it signed by the management head and pre-checking of the patent is the first action taken by the doctor (Kinsella & Pitman, 2012). The parent and guardian will sign the bond form for that concerned patient as these are some legal procedure that they have to maintain. After all, the consent over the operated part will take place by the investigation of the doctor. 

Confidentiality is one of the most important parts of a clinical relationship. The process is involving stages like counselling, sessions and appointments that are complexly private and except the doctor and the patient no one will inform the situation of the patient and about the disease the patient is suffering from. The limitation needs to be considered from the end of medical sites as this information is owned by the patients and medical board has no right to reveal such cases in public. Though some cases come with proper consent like client sign, the percentage of the case, structure of the situation, impact over the personality, and serious issue of maintaining the situation is there and these are the initial stages that limit confidentiality (Tarzian& Force, 2013).

The basic concerns about caring for a client's right to isolation and need to this right have been analysed. Less concentration have been compensated in reality where there are certain periods when observance information secret can be critically hindering the effort of a client. The difficulty of the moral issues is there and that impacted on the patients' behaviour.  The clinical relationship will get hampered at some point of time if confidentiality is broken. The issue of a complex situation and maintain all the data protects client health and safety issues are the concern reason of business understanding. Ensuring the name and address along with the report of the patient all these are confidential and forecasting those things are considered an offence (Runciman, Merry & Walton, 2017). A broad protection sense of trust and belief is present in that case and that impacted over the relationship between the doctor and patients. Interest as a paramount reflection of society and the existing limit of confidentiality is clearly reflected on the patients' relation with the doctor. As the secrets are so much confidential most of the case these files are ragged or kept secretly in some place. 

Professional misconduct is one of the undesirable aspects of the organisation. The process is completely against ethical rulesin an organisation. The expression that was forecasted was not sympathetic, rather a sense of negligence and incompetence is present in such kind of situation. The conflict may be for a different reason like academic, self – referral, verbal or in case of non-verbal cases the situation is persisted in the workplace. In case of medical field the entire situation is concerned with the deflected common sense that partly existed for the situation. In other words, the original term of maintaining a good relationship has broken by the effect of this misconduct situation (Husso et al., 2012). There are some situations where medical negligence happens as well as medic-care cases are wrongly interpreted by the doctors or patients and they come up with a wrong issue that does not make any sense but as per the situation concern, they have been liable for the consequences as well. The single act of malpractice is ended up the situation where misconduct of professional divisiveness has happened. In case of patient death cases, sometimes doctors are considered be guilty and patients parties blame on them. The misconduct cases are evolved through the scenario and in some cases, doctors are completely unknown to the facts but still, they have to convict by the patients' families.

Confidentiality in the Clinical Relationship

Two ethical theories are important in this case and that certainly impacted on the moral philosophy of the organisation. In that situation of Utilitarian theory, the professional has to choose one action between own interest and other interest. The situation of the interest section is very divertive and apparent in all aspect. The fundamental role of the person may pull the ethics in the right way but in case of own interest, the situation could have been different and that affects the global people. This theory of Bentham recognises the fundamental role of pain and pleasure in human life (Radnor, Holweg & Waring, 2012). The process also approves an action or disapproves in some cases in the aspect of pleasure and pain at the same time. The timing of the issue is very important and that asserts the pleasure and pain at the same capable quantification. Intensity, Certainty, Duration and Nearness are the principle thinking of this theory and that impact on the professional understanding. Mill adjusted the philosophy and the improved the quality of the process and make quality happiness in the section of higher and lower pleasure.

On the other hand, Kantian ethics is depending on the deontological moral theory. The theory is not bothered about the consequence of the result; rather it depends on the fulfilment of the duty. The morality and duty for the mass people is the most interesting matter of ethical understanding. The principle of morality and Kant's approach to the situation is analysing the moral development of the society. The categorical imperative form has three universal laws. The first one deal with the maxim method and in this method principle rule is the main issue and people can do whatever they want. The basic idea is the next stage of ethics understating and the process allows other intervention also. In next stage more detail of ethics understating is needed and that state as a universal law.

"Many authors also include such perspectives as egoism, virtue theory, theories of justice, theories of rights, universalism, ethical relativism, an ethic of caring, and so on. The theoretical foundations of business ethics, therefore, are not secure; the dominant interest in the field seems inclined toward building a diversity of perspectives, as opposed to identifying a common core of the theory." (Brady & Dunn, 1995, p. 385)

The ethical frameworks are understandable in this aspect and that affects the medical field also. In certain situation, some major problem has come and the doctor has to sustain one person or all local people. In that situation the problem for the doctor is literally challenging. The situation faced in that situation is basically between the Utilitarian theory and Kantian ethics. The most relevant aspect of this situation is to make the right decision and Kantian ethics may be applicable in this situation.

People in higher authority section are liable for the ethical framework. In most of the cases, ethical actions are implemented by the government officials. In some other cases, the departmental heads set the ethics and employees have to maintain those for setting a clinical atmosphere in the organisation. The ethical responsibilities are aligned with environmental justice and the protection of beneficial individualism. Ethical frameworks are considered from communities, societies, families and in any other section but in most of the cases, the consequences are different in nature. The challenging situations also faced by the executives are the concern matter for the organisation and that impacted on their ethical framework and development of professional. In case of medical aspect, the connection of ethical standards is set by the concern health sector department. The department also takes care of all the health-oriented places and possibly asked for the development of health care (Bošnjak & Maruši? 2012). This involves possible changes to the administrative aspect, where it is resolute what ought to be done, how it must be done and what are the possible changes need to be made. Normally, medical aspect starts with a vow by senior administration, based on the organization’s charge, vision and values. That pledge then percolates during the arrangement and materializes in the policy and in day-to-day policies and events, involving citizens in dialogue, contribution, communication, preparation and execution processes.

References

Bošnjak, L., & Maruši?, A. (2012). Prescribed practices of authorship: review of codes of ethics from professional bodies and journal guidelines across disciplines. Scientometrics, 93(3), 751-763.

Brady, F. N., & Dunn, C. P. (1995). Business meta-ethics: An analysis of two theories. Business Ethics Quarterly, 385-398.

Corrigan, O. (2003). Empty ethics: the problem with informed consent. Sociology of health & illness, 25(7), 768-792.

Grace, P. J., & DRN, P. (Eds.). (2017). Nursing ethics and professional responsibility in advanced practice. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Grace, P. J., & DRN, P. (Eds.). (2017). Nursing ethics and professional responsibility in advanced practice. Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Husso, M., Virkki, T., Notko, M., Holma, J., Laitila, A., & Mäntysaari, M. (2012). Making sense of domestic violence intervention in professional health care. Health & social care in the community, 20(4), 347-355.

Kinsella, E. A., & Pitman, A. (2012). Phronesis as professional knowledge. In Phronesis as Professional Knowledge (pp. 163-172). SensePublishers, Rotterdam.

Radnor, Z. J., Holweg, M., & Waring, J. (2012). Lean in healthcare: the unfilled promise?. Social science & medicine, 74(3), 364-371.

Runciman, B., Merry, A., & Walton, M. (2017). Safety and ethics in healthcare: a guide to getting it right. CRC Press.

Tarzian, A. J., & Force, A. C. C. U. T. (2013). Health care ethics consultation: An update on core competencies and emerging standards from the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities’ Core Competencies Update Task Force. The American Journal of Bioethics, 13(2), 3-13.