ABSTRACT
After a thorough examination, if the physician were the patient, he or she would want a full explanation of the risks, benefits, side effects, and known complications of any proposed procedure or treatment. This truism along with fundamentals of patient rights form the ethical framework for the legal doctrine of informed consent. Informed consent is both a legal requirement and an ethical principle. Informed consent necessitates that all patients be given appropriate, relevant, reasonably accurate, and unbiased information prior to making truly informed decisions regarding their own bodies. Informed consent should never be an attempt to deceive the patient into adopting a certain point of view. The law dictates that no adult should be forced to submit to unwanted treatment and that patients should never be manipulated into doing so based on false, inadequate, or inaccurate medical information. This is also a bedrock principle of medical ethics.
