Only One out of Ten Doctors Obeys Informed Consent Law

     A study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that a mere nine percent of all surveyed doctors fully apply informed consent protocol to their patients.

     The 1999 Braddock study analyzed 1,057 patient and physician encounters and evaluated 3,552 clinical decisions. The providers surveyed were 59 primary care physicians and 65 general or orthopedic physicians.

     The study reveled that only one of every ten doctors surveyed performed a full informed consent disclosure of the risks and benefits of their treatments. Consequently, and worse yet, only 2 percent of the patients surveyed actually understood their recommended treatments.

      Maybe that’s why 80,000,000 Americans are on antidepressants today. The legal requirements for informed consent demand informing a patient of the reason for the diagnosis, the risks as well as the benefits of the treatment, the alternative treatments available with their risks and benefits, and the risks of doing nothing at all. Federal law requires a full enough disclosure that a “reasonable decision” can be made by a patient about taking any recommended treatment.

     Because antidepressants have such proven high risk for emotional blunting, sexual dysfunction, increased suicidal thought, and a near impossibility of quitting them, many “reasonable” patients might seek safer alternatives than psychiatric drugs to handle minor depression or anxiety.

     Some doctors have claimed that because insurance only pays them for an abbreviated interview time with patients, they are forced to curtail any informed consent discussions.

     That, however, is a decision based on finances, not on patient welfare.

     “First, do no harm” says the Hippocratic Oath.

      Not “First, make enough money to afford a Mercedes.”