Disagreement About Consent
Author(s):
Stuart Youngner, M.D.
You are a research fellow in the Department of Psychiatry. A nurse on the inpatient schizophrenia research unit complains to you that two patients who agreed to participate in a challenge study are now quite symptomatic. The nurse is concerned that the patients were "too impaired" when they gave consent to participate. Dr. B, the Director of the unit and principle investigator of the study points out that one of the patients, Ms. Jones, had signed an advance directive six months previously (when she was relatively unimpaired) giving Dr. B authority to enroll her in "a study that might temporarily worsen her symptoms." You are concerned because Ms. Jones has become very symptomatic and seems to be suffering "more than necessary."
Discussion Questions
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of advance directives in cases like this?
- How would you work an advance directive?
- When should advance directives be ignored or overruled?
Cite this page:
Stuart Youngner, M.D.
"Disagreement About Consent"
Online Ethics Center for Engineering
8/28/2006 11:08:44 AM
National Academy of Engineering
Accessed: Sunday, September 07, 2008
<www.onlineethics.org/CMS/research/modindex/resethpages/discons.aspx>