Pericardial effusion in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus: comment on the article by Kahl

✍ Scribed by Brian F. Mandell

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 235 KB
• Volume: 36
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0004-3591
• DOI: 10.1002/art.1780360727

✦ Synopsis

The article by Katz et a1 concerning informed consent and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (1) is important because rheumatologists may mistakenly believe that they disclose more information about medication side effects than they actually do. Although the report is limited in size and scope, it is a laudable preliminary foray into a potentially confusing subject. Several clarifying comments may be helpful.

How informed consent is perceived depends on the medical, legal, or ethical orientation of the observer. Definitions vary and include short ethical propositions, philosophical treatises, and complex legal algorithms. State statutes provide the best practical guidance for physicians, but even these are not uniform (2). For clarity, Katz et a1 could have selected a short ethical definition as the premise for their study. This would have allowed them to portray their conclusions clearly and powerfully.

Instead, they have attempted to fit their data into an abbreviated legal definition which, by its very nature, is open to interpretation and dispute. They paraphrase and oversimplify one legal interpretation of informed consent and fail to put it into its proper context. Contrary to what might be inferred from their article, disclosure is usually only one of several legal requirements that must be met in order to convict a physician of the negligent failure to obtain in-