Abstract
The first issue a book on informed consent should address regards why it was written at all. Of all the current pressing topics in biomedical ethics, from abortion, to the controversies surrounding access to scarce and expensive health care, to the myriad dilemmas ingredient in the area of death and dying, informed consent seems to pale in comparison as an issue. Equally, it would seem that agreement has long since been reached on the ethical necessity for the informed consent of competent patients, indicating that this is no longer a controversial issue. Finally, at least from the perspective of practicing clinicians, the intended audience of this series, the most that is needed is an explanation of the law on informed consent, particularly regarding how to honor its requirements at the bedside. But such “cookbook” approaches to informed consent have been offered.1 Another one is hardly needed.
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Notes
The most detailed of such offerings is Rozovsky, 1984. It provides both conceptual analysis of legal principles as well as guidance regarding specific modalities and consent situations.
Regarding the issue of the use of the singular indefinite pronoun, I will follow the lead of my predecessor in this series, E. Haavi Morreim, who states: “Throughout this volume I will observe the somewhat old-fashioned but still correct custom of using the masculine pronoun in its gender-neutral form to stand as the singular indefinite pronoun (see Shertzer, 1986, p. 20). To substitute plural pronouns such as ‘they’ and ‘their’ is incorrect; consistently using the feminine pronoun instead of the masculine is no less ‘biased’; and alternating between the two seems awkward and contrived. Therefore, although the masculine form is used, no gender bias is intended.” Morreim, 1991, p. 6.
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© 1993 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
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Wear, S. (1993). Introduction. In: Informed Consent. Clinical Medical Ethics, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8122-6_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-8122-6_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
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