Medicolegal Sidebar: Alcohol Abuse—Patient Safety versus Surgeon Privacy

摘要

Consistency in legal rulings promotes , the legal principle that past legal decisions and their reasoning can guide the adjudication of future disputes, with fairness and equity. However, courts are often confronted with competing social values, such that similar cases can end up with conflicting rulings. Indeed, social values can complicate the question of whether a surgeon’s personal attributes should be disclosed during informed consent, or whether surgeon privacy should take priority. Two court cases that are relevant to informed consent have addressed whether a surgeon’s alcohol abuse should be disclosed [ , , ], and their divergent outcomes highlight the complexities associated with these decisions.