BMJ 1995;310:935 (8 April)

Letters

A fundamental problem of consent

Nothing is inherently remiss in present methods of obtaining consent

EDITOR,--John Mitchell describes the case of a consultant anaesthetist who was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by the General Medical Council.1 After giving a general anaes-thetic for dental surgery the anaesthetist inserted a diclofenac suppository for pain relief (which was inadvertently inserted into the patient's vagina) without the patient's consent. The case and the commentaries by Michael A Jones and John N Lunn raise several points.

The verdict of the General Medical Council's professional conduct committee has, it appears, in one particular respect created a formal distinction between the hospital setting and the dental surgery. In the dental surgery it is now mandatory that, when a treatment is to be given to a patient in a site remote from the operative site, the patient must be made aware of this during the preoperative discussion of his or her overall . . . [Full text of this article]


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Relevant Article

A fundamental problem of consent
John Mitchell
BMJ 1995 310: 43-46. [Extract] [Full Text]

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