ArticleMedicine, health care, and philosophy2015
Informed consent and Italian physicians: change course or abandon ship--from formal authorization to a culture of sharing.
Article in Medicine, health care, and philosophy, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- How to effectively obtain informed consent in trauma patients: a systematic review.BMC medical ethics · 2019Pooled it
- Informed consent in medically assisted procreation in Italy: medico-legal and ethical challenges shaping physician responsibility.Frontiers in reproductive health · 2026Review
- Living After Pelvic Exenteration: A Mixed-Methods Synthesis of Quality-of-Life Outcomes and Patient Perspectives.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- Defensive medicine through the lens of the managerial perspective: a literature review.BMC health services research · 2023Review
- Physicians' legal knowledge of informed consent and confidentiality. A cross-sectional study.BMC medical ethics · 2022Article
- Quality of Informed Consent Practices around the Time of Childbirth: A Cross-Sectional Study in Italy.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Comparing South Korea and Italy's healthcare systems and initiatives to combat COVID-19.Revista panamericana de salud publica = Pan American journal of public health · 2020Article
- A review and analysis of new Italian law 219/2017: 'provisions for informed consent and advance directives treatment'.BMC medical ethics · 2019Review
- Does written informed consent adequately inform surgical patients? A cross sectional study.BMC medical ethics · 2019Article
- Characteristics of medical disputes arising from dental practice in Guangzhou, China: an observational study.BMJ open · 2018Observational
- From informed consent to informed dissent in health care: historical evolution in the twentieth century.Acta bio-medica : Atenei Parmensis · 2017Article
- Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplantation: A Bioethical Lens.Stem cells international · 2017Review
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2 authors.
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Abstract
In Italy in recent years, an exponential increase in the frequency of medical malpractice claims relating to the issue of informed consent has substantially altered not only medical ethics, but medical practice as well. Total or partial lack of consent has become the cornerstone of many malpractice lawsuits, and continues to be one of the primary cudgels against defendant physicians in Italian courtrooms. Physicians have responded to the rising number of claims with an increase in 'defensive medicine' and a prevailing preoccupation with the purely formal aspects of consent. The result is a plethora of consent forms, believed to be a guarantee of 'informed consent', as well as a growing reliance on informed consent as a shield against judicial action brought by the patient. Physicians 'inform' patients without really sharing information, often delegating the task of communication to other professionals who are not doctors. Italian judges always condemn the physician when information to the patient has been inadequate, thus leading insurance companies to consider the lack of valid informed consent as the total responsibility of the physician and/or the hospital. It is necessary to change tack, to remove this idea of consent which permeates the defensive culture of medical practice. Italian physicians need to be trained, first of all, to become aware that information and consent are two distinct processes, albeit closely connected. Valid communication (in which there is information and consent) demands a higher level of professionalism from physicians.
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