Informed Consent

If a medical intervention was lawfully performed, a criminal liability does not exist under any circumstances. Only liability arising from an erroneous medical intervention can be related with the concepts of penal law, obligations law, and compensation liability of the administration. Likewise, disciplinary practices of trade bodies such as Medical chambers can be brought to agenda due to erroneous medical intervention. Therefore, it is vitally important to ensure the existence of legal bases before any medical intervention. “Informed consent” is the most important document ensuring that a medical intervention is legal. When the understanding of patient-oriented health services was adopted in North American and European countries in the twenty-first century, the views supporting the patients’ making their own medical decisions about themselves started to replace the provider-oriented approach. In order for the persons to take part in the decisions made regarding their health, they must be fully informed about their medical statuses and the treatment options. The informed consent is important for patient rights, as well as for the physicians’ right in case of a complication. The purpose of this study is to determine whether the legal requirements of the informed consent process in the erroneous medical practices that were reflected on the Istanbul Medical Chamber, and set forth the medical and legal results on the files with no Informed Consent Form. In the study, 1528 patient files regarding erroneous medical practice that were informed to the Istanbul Medical Chamber between 2009 and 2014 by the victim or the victim’s relatives were examined, it was observed that 72.2% of the files had no informed consent form, whereas 27.8% of them had one. It was observed that 44.9% of the existing Informed consents were printed but inadequate, 54.1% of them were printed and adequate, 0.7% of them were specially written for the patient but inadequate, and 0.3% of them were specially written for the patient and adequate.