ABSTRACT
The legal doctrine of 'informed consent' originated in the United States. Canada experienced an increase in the mid-1980s, the United Kingdom in the early 1980s and Australia in the 1990s. Negligence law is defined in terms of a responsibility, or duty of care, not to injure another person, rather than in terms of a right not to be injured. The law of negligence generally requires plaintiffs to provide expert medical evidence. This has proven particularly difficult, given that few medical practitioners are willing to testify against their colleagues. According to the practitioner-based standard of information disclosure, the defendant medical practitioner is not liable if expert witnesses state that the practitioner's action was an accepted practice within the medical community at the time of the alleged incident. English courts have consistently relied on the Bolam principle, or practitioner-based standard, as the test for medical negligence involving information disclosure.
