Los Angeles Medical Malpractice Lawyer - Lack of Informed Consent

When your doctor fails to adequately inform you of the dangers and possible side effects of a procedure or in the use of a given medication or drug, one cannot give informed consent to proceed.  Therefore, if you are subsequently injured in a way which was not explained to you by the doctor, or was not provided and signed by the patient as a waiver, the doctor, the hospital and their insurance companies may be held responsible for your medical malpractice injuries which occurred in Los Angeles.

Informed consent is such an important factor in any medical operation because it is up to the patient to weigh the probability of future harm with the probability of success.  Therefore, when the patient doesn't have all of the necessary facts to be an educated decision, they have not been able to provide adequate consent for the medical operation.  Additionally, the patient must provide more than consent to proceed with an operation - the consent must be an informed consent.

To help protect doctors and hospitals, many of them now require patients to sign a written affirmation of their informed consent which generally includes:

• Name of the doctor or surgeon who will be performing the operation;
• Doctor or surgeon's medical qualifications;
• Patients present medical condition;
• Purpose of the medical procedure;
• Associated risks for the medical procedure;
• Alternatives to this particular medical procedure;
• procedure's success rate;
• Expected medical procedure recovery time;
• Approximate cost of medical procedure;
• Whether medical procedure will be covered by health insurance.

Contact a Los Angeles medical malpractice attorney to discuss the injuries you have sustained because of your lack of informed consent today by speaking with a lawyer at 800-715-4489.