Physicians make patients aware of those interventions that they (the patients) may then refuse. In short, informed consent is less about patient decisions than it is about restraining physicians.
The first women’s movement in the mid-nineteenth century endorsed anesthesia during childbirth and some of the very patterns of obstetric practice that became anathema to the natural childbirth movement a century later.
AMA J Ethics. 2015;17(3):253-257. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2015.17.3.msoc1-1503.
Physicians have an ethical responsibility to caregivers whose psychological distress is caused by their experience of the patient’s illness and treatment.
AMA J Ethics. 2017;19(5):493-500. doi:
10.1001/journalofethics.2017.19.5.msoc3-1705.
A physician member of Congress gives a first-hand account of how she has balanced medicine and politics and how she views her responsibility to the patients of America.
A physician argues that every clinician should expand themselves beyond individual patient care and on some level adopt a public role within their community.