Constraint and Consent — On Being a Patient and a Subject

I FIND it hard to believe that "informed consent," of which we physicians are now so proud, is very often valid. Many others have commented on this problem.1 , 2 It is hard, for example, to believe that the patient in the coronary-care unit, where his physicians and their machines battle for him against death, can deny any procedure or process to those wrestling for his life. Indeed, I doubt if any physician caring for any patient can ever get really informed consent from that patient; the patient-physician relation is, or should be, so strong as to make the likely-hood of free . . .