| Venue: | NJ SC |
| Facts: | 81-year-old plaintiff falls and breaks her hip. Dr. Mastromonaco decides against installing screws, and prescribes bed rest. Plaintiff is now confined to a nursing home, and had previously been independent. |
| Posture: | Trial court reduses to hear an informed consnt claim because:
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| Issue: | Does the doctrine of informed consent require a physician to obtain a patient's consent before implementing a nonsurgical course of treatment? Should a physician discuss with the patient medically reasonable alternatives that the physician doesn not recommend? |
| Holding: | Yes, and yes. The Appellate Division is affirmed. Retrial. |
| Rule: | The ultimate decision is for the patient. Physicians don't adequately discharge their duties by disclosing only those options that they recommend. |
| Reasoning: | The reason the "invasiveness" requirement is there was that surgery
used to be treated as battery if it wasn't specifically consented.
That's sort of obsolete, and the question is better cast as one
of the patient's right to self-determination. Informed consent
is the standard we should be concerned with.
Physicians can't be imposing their values on patients. Here there's the suggestion that the doctor thought the patient would be better off not living independently. But the choice between quality and length of life is one for the patient to make, not the doctor. |
| Dicta: | |