The Foundation of Modern Medical/Bioethics: Moral and Theoretical Frameworks (Reaction Paper Sample)

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Position Paper
Over the last three decades, informed consent has been the focus of debates on ethically acceptable medical practice. Although informed consent may appear as a recent concept in medical practice, the issue originated after the Nuremberg Medical Trial, which saw to the ruling on criteria to carry out medical experiments. Historically, the use of human subjects in medical experiments was a criminal offence. Even after the proposal to use specific guidelines when conducting biomedical research, the judges failed to use the guidelines in reaching a verdict concerning the Nazi experiments (Paul, 2001).
In medical practice, healthcare providers perceive informed consent as necessary to justify actions, which could affect others, such as medical treatment, researches on human subjects and the use of human tissues in biomedical research. Although health care providers and investigators have provided arguments supporting informed consent, some of the arguments are unconvincing. Overall, informed consent is ethically important in today’s medical world because of the many and continuing medical advancements. Informed consent is not only present in medical practice, but also in education, including other fields where social relations have become more complex, less personal and displaced traditional approaches to trust (Madeleine, & Julie, 2003).
In the same context, institutions are finding informed consent as strategic, mainly because of the protection informed consent outlines in regards to, accusation, litigation and possible compensation awards. The concept of informed concept has raised various ethical issues, and such has undermined the ethical perspective of informed concept. This is because the ethical essence of informed consent, I perceive is elementary. In such a context, informed consent provides a patient, research subject or tissue donor with assurance that, the identified people have not been deceived. As such, it is another observation that, there should be detailed information concerning informed consent to avoid possible pitfalls in the future (Kinnersley et al., 2003).
Prior to conducting any medical activity, which involves human beings, the medical experts or professionals, must obtain informed consent from the humans (patient, tissue donor or research participant). Obtaining the consent will require a thorough discussion between the medical expert and the human being (patient, tissue donor or research participant), prior to the study, invasive procedure or request to donate tissues. The medical expert must provide or make known the results, procedures, risks and benefits of the medical procedure or study. In addition, the discussion should be honest, and the medical expert, after briefing the relevant human subject or patient, should accept the outcomes (O’Neill, 2003).
Informed consent is important in several ways. Although the procedure aims at diagnosing or improving health, risk of injury or any other adverse effect may arise. Commonly, the medical practice has relied on informed consent, mainly when it comes to surgical procedures. In case, the patient is not of age, that is; the patient is under the years of 16, then, it is important to seek informed consent from their relatives. Prior to giving an informed consent, evidence reports that, patients must understand the information provided, retained the information for enough time to understand, weigh all the risks or benefits and make a decision on either rejecting or accepting (Paul, 2001).
Notably, the number of surgical procedures conducted across the globe, continue to grow each year, which require informed consent from the patients. Apart from surgical procedures, the field of biomedical research is also growing rampantly. Medical experts are working hard to find cures to the life-threatening situations in human beings, which require the use of human subjects and human tissues in research. However, evidence reports that, the consent consultation in many cases, fail to meet the needs of the patients. Therefore, patients fail to receive understandable and adequate information, or in other cases, the information is not central to their specific needs. In this regard, failure of providing succinct information often results in problems, which has seen to the many formal complaints that have incurred significant costs (Kinnersley et al., 2003).
The concept of informed concept represents an ethical perspective in medical practice, and allowing patients to make decisions that, potentially influence their lives. However, in bioethics, there are pr...