Evaluating Informed Consent: Ethical Practices in Healthcare Today

This essay discusses healthcare ethics, emphasizing the critical role of informed consent in medical procedures. It references the Cartwright inquiry of 1988, which highlighted the importance of ethical considerations following breaches where patients were unknowingly used in research. The essay details the legal requirements for obtaining informed consent, including providing patients with comprehensive information about their condition, treatment options, potential risks, and allowing time for questions. It acknowledges exceptions to this requirement, such as emergency situations or routine procedures with minimal impact. The essay concludes that informed consent is now widely observed in healthcare settings due to legal requirements and ethics training, contributing to greater patient rights and ethical practice. Desklib offers a range of study resources and solved assignments to aid students.

Running head: HEALTHCARE ETHICS
Healthcare Ethics
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

HEALTHCARE ETHICS 2
Healthcare Ethics
Health care ethics comprises of a set of moral values, beliefs and principles that guide
the process of offering care. According to Adams (2017), ethics have always been considered
important and the society has advocated ethical considerations in almost all its operations
throughout history. During the 21st century, ethics remain to be important with several
legislations having been put in place to promote ethics in different procedures and places.
The Cartwright inquiry of 1988 was born out of what would be considered a great breach of
health care ethics where cervical cancer patients were used as research subjects without their
knowledge. Several recommendations were consequently made. One such recommendation
was that an informed consent should be sought from patients before carrying out any medical
procedure. This essay is going to discuss the implementation of informed consent and the
extent of its success in healthcare provision.
The law requires that a patient be informed about their medical condition and the
medical interventions that will be carried out (Faden, Beauchamp and Kass, 2014). This
information is provided by the physician. Once the patient has understood their condition and
the procedures they consent or agree by signing a consent form. In cases where the patient is
taking part in a research or they are under general anaesthetic their consent should also be
sought. The information provided by the health care provider include what will happen
during a medical procedure, whether there are other options, what the patient should expect
after the procedure and any possible risks that are associated with the procedure. In addition,
the patient should be given time to ask questions if any. It is only when they consent that the
procedure should go on. However, there are some exceptions such as when the procedure is
basic and does not have a significant effect on the patient, for example, monitoring the
heartbeat of a patient. Another exception is during emergencies when medical intervention is
greatly needed and there is time limitation.

HEALTHCARE ETHICS 3
Informed consent is now an ethical consideration that is widely observed in health
care settings. It is both culturally acceptable and a requirement of the law (Hall, Orentlicher,
Bobinski, Bagley and Cohen2018). Institutions that train health professional make sure that
they teach their students on the importance of maintaining ethics while offering health care.
As observed by Runciman, Merry and Walton (2017), this has greatly contributed to
observance of the informed consent both in medical procedures and research. Performing a
medical procedure without the knowledge of the patient, unless under the special
circumstances mentioned above, is gross violation of the rights of the patient and it is
unethical.
In conclusion, healthcare ethics are moral values, beliefs and principles that guide the
process of offering health care. One of the Cartwright’s Inquiry recommendations of 1988 is
a written consent before a medical procedure is carried out involving a cervical cancer
patient. Today, informed consent is required by law not only in cervical cancer patients but
also patients with other conditions. To a large extent, the health care settings have
implemented informed consent.

HEALTHCARE ETHICS 4
References
Adams, J. (2017). Doctors in Denial. The Forgotten Women in the ‘Unfortunate Experiment’.
Faden, R. R., Beauchamp, T. L., & Kass, N. E. (2014). Informed consent, comparative
effectiveness, and learning health care. N Engl J Med, 370(8), 766-768.
Hall, M. A., Orentlicher, D., Bobinski, M. A., Bagley, N., & Cohen, I. G. (2018). Health care
law and ethics. Wolters Kluwer Law & Business.
Runciman, B., Merry, A., & Walton, M. (2017). Safety and ethics in healthcare: a guide to
getting it right. CRC Press.