Using informed consent to save trust

The New Trends in Medicine and Trust

“…The cornerstone of medical ethics is based on physicians' attitude in the interests and health benefits of patients. So, it must be strengthen by the trustful interaction between doctor and patient [4,17].…”

Informed consent, the value of trust, and hedons

“…Sissela Bok's1 and Torbjörn Tännsjö's2 writings on trust and informed consent were sources of inspiration for my article 3. It is gratifying to have a chance to respond to their thoughtful comments.…”

The impossibility of informed consent?

“…Arguments by O'Neill and others in support of this claim however have more recently been challenged in a 2014 paper by ethicist Eyal13 from the USA. The argument that informed consent promotes trust in medical practice, Eyal argues, while initially appealing, does not necessarily hold up for a variety of reasons: trust in doctors, for example, is not invariably desirable, especially if it is excessive, while on the other hand trust may actually be diminished, if overemphasising a need for trust or providing too much information makes patients, reasonably or unreasonably, suspicious.…”

“…In their 1997 paper14 entitled ‘Should informed consent be based on rational beliefs?’,13 physician and ethicist J Savulescu from the UK and philosopher Momeyer from the USA argue that being autonomous ‘may not require that one's choices and actions are rational’ but ‘it does require that one's beliefs which ground those choices are rational.’ Being autonomous ‘involves freely and actively making one's own evaluative choices about how one's life should go’, but ‘we cannot form an idea of what we want without knowing what the options on offer are like ’. Applying these considerations to refusal of life-prolonging blood transfusions by Jehovah's Witnesses, Savulescu and Momeyer argue that the beliefs on which this refusal is based are ‘irrational on at least two counts: their particular beliefs are not responsive to evidence nor are their interpretations of Biblical text consistent’ either with other Biblical texts contradicting their beliefs or with ‘the vast majority … in the Judeo-Christian tradition”.…”