Do we really know the law about students and patient consent?

摘要

It is difficult to understand medical law without an appreciation and full understanding of the scale and importance of consent. Through spending time on the wards and in the theatres, medical students learn the necessity and legal importance of consent. However, I wonder whether we truly know the laws of consent, and I go as far as to ask whether all doctors themselves do. It seems to me that the true breadth of the term consent is not fully appreciated and has become yet another automatism in the profession.