Bolam Buried, Belatedly?

This editorial reviews the international lineage and also the ramifications of the decision by the United Kingdom Supreme Court in Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board [2015] 1 AC 14; [2015] UKSC 11 in respect of medical practitioners’ obligations to advise of risks to their patients. It argues that the abandonment of the test set out in Bolam v Friern Hospital Management Committee [1957] 1 WLR 582 constitutes the final interment of the paternalistic rationales for withholding pertinent information from patients. The decision is internationally significant in terms of its recalibration of the doctor-patient relationship, its identification of the dignity in informed decision-making by patients, and its assertion of a culture of shared information to enable patients to balance clinical with non-clinical considerations in making decisions about treatment.