PubMed · 6905542
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G A Perin. 1981. Promoting informed consent.. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6905542/
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Bringing well-informed patients to the OR is a challenge for all who participate in surgical patients' care. Although the issue of informed consent has been around for a long time, it was not until the latter half of the twentieth century that health care professionals and patients began to focus on informed consent as a central concern in health care. This article explains the roots of informed consent, the path it has traveled, and the importance that health care professionals, especially perioperative nurses, play in ensuring that patients are fully informed about their impending procedures.
The principal motive for organ donation in the United States remains altruism. Surveys suggest that if the life-threatening and critical shortage of cadaveric donor organs were appropriately understood by the public, an altruistic response would lead to increased donation. However, despite intense educational efforts appealing to altruism, cadaveric organ donation has not increased substantially while the number of patients in need of a life-saving organ has grown markedly. To understand why organ donation has not increased, a telephone survey and focus group sessions of volunteers who were either for or against donation (donors and nondonors, respectively) were reviewed. The focus group nondonors demonstrated a remarkable lack of trust in the fairness of organ allocation and in the success of transplantation; indeed, this mistrust extended to the entire medical profession. The donors in the focus groups, on the other hand, believed that the system worked equitably, although their knowledge about organ donation and transplantation was equivalent to that of nondonors. For organ donation to increase, efforts must be directed toward those who are not convinced that donation is for the common welfare. One way to increase organ donation is for physicians to educate their patients better regarding the equity and success of transplantation.
This article discusses some practical matters which arise when competence to make decisions is in question. Consent, testamentary capacity, powers of attorney, the Court of Protection, "living wills," and research on people with dementia are briefly considered.