Informed consent is almost always going to guide the course of treatment that you undergo when you go see a medical professional. Whether you need surgery, are undergoing some type of physical therapy, or receiving any other medical care, you must generally give your consent before a procedure or treatment begins. Here, we want to discuss what happens if there was a lack of informed consent and a patient is injured.
What is Informed Consent/Informed Consent Law Illinois?
Every patient has the right to fully understand their options before they give consent to non-emergency medical treatments. Before treating a patient, physicians or surgeons are required to let the patient know about the known risks and benefits associated with the procedure, as well as any alternative treatments available.
In Illinois, physicians are held to a “reasonable” standard concerning informed consent. This means that a doctor is required to tell a patient what another reasonable doctor would tell the same patient under similar circumstances.
What is an Example of Lack of Informed Consent?
The most common examples of a lack of informed consent includes a physician not letting a patient know the known risks associated with the procedure. While this may not seem like a big deal if a procedure is successful, if a patient does suffer from one of these known risks that they did not know about, this could be a case of lack of informed consent causing harm.
Similarly, if a doctor performs a procedure that is different from the one that the patient agreed to, then this would be a clear lack of informed consent unless there was a medical emergency that necessitated an alternative procedure be performed without obtaining necessary consent.
What Happens When There is No Informed Consent?
One of the tenants of medical malpractice cases that must be proven is that the negligence of a medical provider must have caused a patient harm for there to actually be a case of medical malpractice. However wrong it may be for a doctor or surgeon to not get informed consent, it could be hard to prove medical malpractice if there was no actual patient harm.
However, if a patient is harmed in a procedure, and they had not given informed consent, they may be able to file a medical malpractice claim against the medical professional or facility involved. In these cases, the patient must show that they were not properly informed about the medical procedure that caused them harm, and they must show that have they been informed, the injury would not likely have occurred because the treatment would have been declined.
What is Gross Negligence and Lack of “Informed Consent”?
In general, a person is negligent when they do something wrong and cause harm to somebody else. Gross negligence means that a person’s conduct was egregious or intentional. In medical malpractice, gross negligence usually refers to conduct that is so reckless that it is obviously a mistake to even a person with no medical training. For example, a surgeon who amputates the wrong limb or leaves a surgical instrument inside of a patient after a procedure could be found to be grossly negligent. For more information on your case, speak to a Chicago personal injury lawyer today.