Logged out
Access All our Essays in an Instant
Swap your work for FREE access, or pay £4.99 for instant access
'The English courts only pretend to respect patient autonomy. In any difficult case, the judges prefer the doctors' judgement of the patient's best interests.' Discuss.
Member rating:
(1 vote)
| Words:
| Submitted: Mon Jun 19 2006
Page Preview
On the left is an image preview of every page of this document, and below are the first 150 words with formatting removed:
'The English courts only pretend to respect patient autonomy. In any difficult case, the judges prefer the doctors' judgement of the patient's best interests.' Discuss. Self governance or autonomy fundamentally depends on capacity to make ones own decisions. Mentally competent people are said to enjoy the right to autonomy, not least in their own health and treatment of illness. When a conflict of interest arises between how someone would have them self treated and how they have been treated, the courts have been called upon, either to stop a treatment proceeding or provide compensation when it has been seen as unlawful. In this case, when performed without the correct consent required. The law in the past has almost always sided with medical opinion. The 'doctor knows best' idea has been part of society for a long time. Recent cases have proven this is not always correct. We will examine how far...
To see the full version of this document, and 143,651 others
