Patients Make the Ultimate Informed Decisions
Good communication gives everyone the info needed for best results
Patients need lifesaving medical treatment, but when decision time comes, they refuse to give their consent. What went wrong? Could such patients be saved?
Dr. Iris Thiele Isip Tan and her colleagues have asked this many times, questioning themselves how they could have done better for those in their care.
“I have been attending medical audit conferences for years,” Tan said. “Lately, I’m hearing this more often: The patient — or the relative — did not give consent for the procedure.
“I’m wondering why,” she said. “I often ask, ‘What exactly did you tell the patient?’ What one says — and how one says it — matters, of course.”
Open Eyes and Patient Understanding Can Help Save a Life
Tan is a consultant at the Philippine General Hospital Section of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and a visiting consultant at Manila Doctors Hospital.
She talked with doctors Winlove Mojica and Helen Madamba about where informed consent falls short at critical times.
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