Consent to Surgery or Other Procedures, and to Care - Literature review Example

Download file to see previous pages Adults are a group of individuals that have the capability to take decisions on the medical interventions or care interventions and demonstrate their willingness for a particular medical intervention strategy or care strategy by giving their consent either in writing, oral or by implication. The concept of patient consent stems from the legal and ethical rights of patient autonomy. Patient autonomy implies that an adult patient has the capability and the right to decide on what is done to the body of the individual and it is the duty of the medical and nursing professionals in the health care sector to respect this ability and right of patients to be involved in the decision making process about their own health care (Aveyard, 2002).

Many a time there is the wrong assumption that getting the consent of the patient the responsibility of the involved medical professional and that the nursing professionals is just a silent observer of the process. From a legal perspective it is true that the responsibility of consent lies with the medical professional, but the advocacy role of the nursing professional demands that the nursing professional takes an active role in the consent of the patient and is pro-active, when the nursing professionals that patient autonomy is not being given the necessary respect it deserves (McStein & Peden-McAlpine, 2006).

Another frequent misconception is that patient consent is required only for intensive medical interventions like major surgeries. Patient consent is required for any aspect that involves the patient and the body of the patient, even if it involves simple procedures considered normal to nursing care, like taking the blood pressure of the patient. Patient consent is an integral component of any medical or surgical procedure and extends into nursing because of the explicit epistemic component of patient autonomy of making informed free choices in the management of their own health care. ...Download file to see next pagesRead More