People have a social obligation to conform to the general rules of sleeping: sleep at night, in a bed, in a private place away from public view, and in proper attire.
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 U. S. health care system encourages patients to take more responsibility for their own treatment decisions and expects their doctors to cooperate in that effort. But the guidelines for exercising that responsibility remain very murky indeed.
With the U.S. Supreme Court likely to decide on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, it is instructive to understand the relevant policy positions of the largest physician organization in the country.
You are not just the rural patient’s doctor, you are the doctor for the football team, a friend, and perhaps a relative; you speak on health at local schools and are expected to attend fundraisers.
When called to consult or to testify at “sexually violent predator” hearings, medical professionals’ primary task is adapting recognized medical terminology to the SVP label; they are asked to shoehorn medical diagnoses into ill-fitting legal language.