Home

Climate Change Project

Table of Contents

Courses

Search
<< >> Up Title Contents
Unknowable Risks

Medicine is not a perfect science. All medical care is associated with unknown, and perhaps unknowable, risks. The physician must tell the patient of the known risks of treatment, but this is not a guarantee that other problems cannot occur. Patients may assume these unknown risks if three conditions are met:

1.
The risk is unknown (or of such a low probability that it is not known to be causally related to the procedure).

2.
The patient is informed that the disclosed risks are not the only possible risks.

3.
The medical rationale for the treatment is sound.

Condition 3 means that a patient cannot assume the risks of a negligently recommended treatment, an important issue with marginal treatments and vanity surgery. A patient who suffers a complication from an improper treatment may always sue the physician who recommended the treatment. A detailed consent form, listing all the risks of a treatment, is no protection if the treatment is unnecessary. If a patient can prove that a treatment was unnecessary or contraindicated, then the consent to risks of the treatment becomes ineffective.

<< >> Up Title Contents

Law and the Physician Homepage
Copyright 1993 - NOT UPDATED

The Climate Change and Public Health Law Site
The Best on the WWW Since 1995!
Copyright as to non-public domain materials
See DR-KATE.COM for home hurricane and disaster preparation
See WWW.EPR-ART.COM for photography of southern Louisiana and Hurricane Katrina
Professor Edward P. Richards, III, JD, MPH - Webmaster

Provide Website Feedback - https://www.lsu.edu/feedback
Privacy Statement - https://www.lsu.edu/privacy
Accessibility Statement - https://www.lsu.edu/accessibility