Informed consent in health care services

Authors

Abstract

As a general rule, medical interventions require to be informingly consented by the patient. This requirement is ethically founded in the autonomy of the patient to decide on his own body and the respect for his dignity that prevent to instrumentalise it. The way in which the law materialises those ends is by implementing duties to inform and duties to advise, and regulating the conditions under which the consent must be given. Legally, those duties delimit the relation physician-patient and give guidance to define hypothesis of civil liability. In this article, we revise the conditions for the satisfaction of those duties and the cases in which their breach give rise to civil liability.

Keywords:

informed consent, dignity and autonomy of the patient, duty to inform and duty to advise, civil liability

Author Biography

Gabriel Hernández Paulsen, Universidad de Chile

Este artículo está vinculado con el Proyecto Fondecyt de Iniciación 11180826, del que Gabriel Hernández es Investigador Responsable