A legal document that has been written and processed through the courts is called Informed Consent. An Informed Consent Document requires that doctors give all patients important information about his/her own procedure before the surgery or the treatment takes place.
The following four items are important factors in the Informed Consent: 1. the nature of the treatment/surgery, 2. the risks, 3. the advantages, and 4. the possibilities. However, having access to legal documentation allows doctors to be protected and to have legal liability, and it could also protect them against any harm that may occur to the patient. .
The Federal Policy for the Protection for Human Subjects was adopted in 1991. The policy was made to ensure an unformed system of safety in all departments and Federal places. Informed Consent provides safety to the people. For instance, patients have the right to know the procedures before hand. If the procedures include information that benefits relevant risks or uncertainties then the patient decides what suits him/her the best. Informed Consent, however, does not only protect the patients, but the doctors as well. .
However, today there are many new potential impacts that come from recent activities going on in medical research and in the scientific community. Day after day, medical researchers come closer and closer to capturing a way to cure viruses. For example, there is now a flu shot that can be diagnosed. Nevertheless, because this is a whole new generation, there are many more new ways to cure sicknesses. Nothing to this nature, was available to people who had viruses not to long ago. .
The function of Informed Consent is served within the community and protection for the people and the doctors. This is so that people know exactly what procedures will occur and so that the doctors will be protected, and do not get sued for not telling the patients all the procedures that will occur.
