Informed consent: medical-legal update for the practitioner on recent judicial opinions applying state laws

Physicians, in general, and surgeons, in particular, need to be aware that there is no universally applicable definition of informed consent. This paper provides a framework for understanding current, commonly accepted legal approaches and trends. State codes, state cases, and federal cases were searched manually and with the Westlaw and Lexis data bases for states with both informed consent statutes and judicial decisions interpreting those laws. Statutory definitions, where present, may be general or detailed. Legal standards for informed consent disclosure are usually either professionally based or objective. Standards for informed consent causation have been either subjective, objective, or modified-objective. Often, a physician must breech both the disclosure and the causation standards to be legally liable. Results of individual cases depend on the legislative and judicial standards adopted. Physicians need to be conversant with the general approaches to informed consent so they may better understand the applicable standards for their own jurisdictions.