In life, you sign many things without blinking an eye — receipts at restaurants, online forms for websites, and even routine work documents. However, medical procedures represent a completely different situation, and anytime your health or life can be negatively affected, you must understand what you are agreeing to and why. This is medical consent, and it is an integral part of keeping patients and doctors on the right side of the law. If you suffered an injury due to a medical mistake or unnecessary intervention that you didn’t agree to Probinsky & Cole can help you secure compensation.
What Medical Consent Means
Consent in the medical context refers to voluntary agreements between patients and their medical providers, allowing them to undergo a specific medical intervention. Consent ensures that you know the nature of the procedure, the risks involved, potential benefits, and any alternative treatments available.
Consent in Florida medical procedures include:
Informed Consent: This is the most comprehensive form of consent, in which the doctor provides all relevant information about the proposed treatment. The patient can then make a well-informed decision about whether to proceed based on all known facts and risks, clearly signing a document or laying out their medical wishes.
Express Consent: Given either verbally or in writing, express consent is an explicit agreement to a medical procedure. Similar to informed consent, but informed consent typically refers to a greater amount of information given to the patient.
Implied Consent: In some situations, consent is an assumption based on your actions or the circumstances. For example, if you open your mouth during a checkup, it’s implied that you consent to the doctor following up with whatever they intended to check inside your mouth. For bigger operations like surgeries, implied consent would only be valid or considered in emergencies. Both doctors and patients would rather make big decisions only after clearly detailing the risks.
It isn’t common for a doctor or nurse to provide a detailed document for every simple procedure, like blood draws or temperature tests. The risks of severe injury in those situations are also low. Consent matters most during dangerous procedures and invasive surgeries, and anyone going under the knife must give informed consent to their healthcare providers.
When Lack of Consent Leads to Legal Action
Something going wrong during a medical procedure isn’t enough to warrant legal action against a healthcare provider. However, if healthcare providers make mistakes or, importantly, fail to obtain consent, it can be an option. Without consent, you might also undergo unnecessary surgery, experience adverse side effects, or miss out on alternative treatments that could have been more suitable. Whenever you feel a medical decision was made without your consent, you may be able to go after your healthcare provider to hold them legally responsible for any injuries or complications you’ve suffered.
A lack of consent can occur in various ways with varying levels of ‘culpability’:
No Consent Obtained: The procedure was done without any discussion or agreement.
Insufficient information Provided: You weren’t fully informed about the risks, benefits, or alternatives, making it impossible to give true informed consent.
Misunderstanding or Miscommunication: Language barriers, medical jargon, or rushed explanations can cause confusion about what you were consenting to.
If a doctor blatantly ignores the requirement of obtaining medical consent, the case will be stronger than one where slight misunderstandings cause issues. However, in both situations, Florida residents harmed due to a medical professional failing to obtain proper consent have the right to pursue legal action.
When medical professionals neglect this responsibility, the consequences can be devastating, and our team wants to help. If you or a loved one has suffered due to a lack of proper consent for a medical procedure, contact Probinsky & Cole today for a confidential consultation.
