When improperly provided, medical treatment can be extremely dangerous. Every year, thousands of people are injured and killed by medical malpractice. While this negligence can take many forms, one issue seen with regularity is medical professionals providing treatment without informed consent.
What is informed consent?
Before pursuing a course of treatment, a medical professional is required to obtain your informed consent. This means that you must agree to the treatment being recommended while knowing the risks associated with it. In order for consent to be considered informed, a medical professional should do each of the following:
- Explain the risks associated with the recommended treatment
- Identify the potential benefits of the treatment
- Educate you on alternative treatment options available to you
- Explain the potential risks and rewards of those alternative options
- Ensure that you understand the information that’s being provided to you
Only after a conversation about these issues has been had should you be asked to sign documentation indicating your consent to treatment.
What if you never provided consent or it wasn’t informed consent?
If you never provided informed consent, then the doctor who treated you has likely committed medical malpractice. As a result, you may be justified in taking legal action against them, which could result in the recovery of compensation for the harm caused to you. This is especially true if the treatment provided left you with significant physical, emotional, and financial losses.
Are you ready to build your medical malpractice claim?
There are a lot of ways to approach your medical malpractice claim. Attacking informed consent is just one strategy. Therefore, if you’re ready to seek accountability and compensation for the damage caused to you, then now is the time to start considering the best way to build your medical malpractice arguments.