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I was wondering if anyone knew the difference between informed consent and failure to warn in the context of medical malpractice.

Ex. P needs surgery. Doctor orders MRI first and tells her she needs a pain killer. She tells him she can only have morphene. He says no worries and promises to give her morphene. The procedure is 2 weeks later and when its time to write down the order for a painkiller he forgets and gives her Demeral, which is what he usually gives because it is generally safer than morphene, but it actually increases a risk of mental disease. P gets a mental disease.

It seems like she never consented to the Demeral, so how could it be informed consent? If not i see that he failed to warn her about the risks of demeral, but what about his negligence in forgetting that he promised to give her morphene?

Any help would be awesome.... please.

christmas mouse wrote:I was wondering if anyone knew the difference between informed consent and failure to warn in the context of medical malpractice.

Ex. P needs surgery. Doctor orders MRI first and tells her she needs a pain killer. She tells him she can only have morphene. He says no worries and promises to give her morphene. The procedure is 2 weeks later and when its time to write down the order for a painkiller he forgets and gives her Demeral, which is what he usually gives because it is generally safer than morphene, but it actually increases a risk of mental disease. P gets a mental disease.

It seems like she never consented to the Demeral, so how could it be informed consent? If not i see that he failed to warn her about the risks of demeral, but what about his negligence in forgetting that he promised to give her morphene?

Any help would be awesome.... please.

I would base this in negligence. Its not informed consent because she never actually consented. If he had failed to give her information regarding the drug and she agreed to take it and then got ill, then it would be an informed consent case. But where there was no consent, I have a hard time seeing how it would fit.

I think I would argue the doctor acted negligently and not up to the standard of other professionals of his field...he had a duty, he clearly breached it..and is the cause in fact and proximate cause of the injury. this is much less messy than trying to get into informed consent here.