[Informing the patient--but how? Ethics and theory of patient information]

Informed consent is one of the most discussed topics of bioethics. This new emphasis on seeking patient's consent is due to the fact that since the 1960s there has been a considerable change in the ideal of patient-physician relationship. There has been an important shift from a physician-based commitment of promoting well-being to a patient-based right of information arising from individual autonomy instead of a Hippocratic paternalism. Consent requirement is ethically derived from the duty to treat persons as ends, not merely as means. So the physician has a special moral obligation to assure the patient's moral agency by reducing the inequality in information between patient and physician. Therefore a morally valid consent has to be a continuing process rather than a singular event.