The principle of informed consent to medical intervention: A comparative judicial study in American and English law

Document Type : Original Article

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Mansoura University- Faculty of Law

Abstract

Obtaining the patient's informed consent before medical intervention is one of the established principles that govern medical practice at the present time, and has even become an established doctrine in various legal systems. Recent years have witnessed a development in the concept of consent that a doctor must obtain before beginning any medical procedure. This consent is no longer in its traditional sense, but rather he must obtain the patient's    informed consent. This concept of patient consent is relatively new in the medical community; this term did not exist before. The credit for the emergence of the doctrine of informed consent in its current concept and its development is due to the American judiciary and its English counterpart after it, with some differences between them. Both the American judiciary and its English counterpart after it, regarding informed consent, went through several stages, during which jurisprudence witnessed a remarkable development. He moved from the stage of medical domination and denial of the patient's right to consent to a medical procedure, through the recognition of the patient's right to autonomy and self-determination, and ending with this modern approach called the doctrine of informed consent. The role of the Anglo-Saxon judiciary did not depend on establishing the principle of informed consent, but rather had the most prominent role in the development of this principle until it reached what it is now.

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