Informed Consent Case Study: The Brewster Vs. University Hospital

The Brewster v. University Hospital is a case that deals with informed consent, in this case the plaintiff seemed to be wronged in the sense that their child was not given the best opportunity for a full recovery. The defendant, however, believes no wrong has been done since the professionals are certain that the diagnosis was best for the patient. The argument develops in the sense that the parents of the patient were not informed of all the different diagnosis, and how this illness could affect their child’s brain development. The patient suffered from hyperbilirubinemia, or jaundice, which seems to be of a normal occurrence for many infants, but it must be controlled because high levels of bilirubin causes great damage to the brain. This was part of the information the Brewster’s were not informed of, along with the fact that there is a much more aggressive form of diagnosis for this illness, which is blood
Thus, the case holds weight in the essence that they were not informed completely, and the results cost their child in brain damage. Healthcare professionals should understand the basics of informed consent, they should also never fall short of relaying the information in detail, so it would allow the patient or guardian to make an informed judgement that would be in the care seeker’s best interest. As healthcare providers, our society as a whole trusts their opinion and holds their opinion at a high regard, which is why professional standards forces them to inform the society, in this case their patients, of all the possible treatments and the pros and cons that follow the treatment, in order to bring the individual to their standard of status quo. Physicians have a series of questions to ask themselves, which assist them in justifying that the patient has all the information necessary to