[About medical accidents and their medicolegal implications. Information and consent]

Medical practice today is not simple because of various factors impinging on the doctor-patient relationship. The concept of consent arises from the ethical principle of patient autonomy and basic human rights. It is also the rule of law (Civil Code article 16-3) that guarantees the patient's right and freedom to decide what should or should not happen to his/her body and to gather information before undergoing a test/procedure/surgery. No one else has the right to coerce the patient to act in a particular way. The authors after a reflexion about medical accidents and their medicolegal implications, discuss the means to display in order to provide to the patients the adequate information about their disease and proposed treatment, therefore protecting the medical practitioner from the consequences of insufficient or ill information.