[Patient's consent to treatment with reference to the development of medical ethics]

Abstract

In the paper the development of the patient's rights to informed consent to treatment has been discussed with reference to codes of medical ethics. The expression of the patient's rights and recognition of his/her active part in the course of treatment was proceeding gradually and parallel to the evolution of the subjective term "patient". Nowadays the patient's rights are determined by many declarations and international conventions, e.g. the Human Rights and Dignity Convention (1996). The so-called informed consent includes the right to the complete information about the course of treatment as well as the risk taken especially during surgical treatment and the right of a shared decision to choose the treatment. Patients who are unconscious and those with limited consciousness constitute the problem that is still being solved. It is expected that along with the development of medical ethics, the medico-legal regulations concerning the above mentioned issues will be specified soon. Besides the obligatory legal regulations, in many difficult cases the assessment and decision whether the patient's consent is informed or not, burden only a physician's conscience.