Abstract
The book offers a comprehensive explanation of one of the basic phenomena of modern medicine, which is an informed consensus as a conditio since qua non for every medical professional intervention in the patient's life. Without it, nothing can be done with the patient.
This is a complex system of relationships between concepts and values, the understanding of which requires a thorough analysis. the research is consistently evading the legal context and only deals with the ethical aspect of these relationship. The interpretation is divided into two parts.
The first part shows the general features of that essential condition, with the fact that a relatively chaotic approach based on ad hoc collected principles is replaced by three basic categories: the category of responsibility, equivalence and affiliation, with affiliation bringing into consideration in the relationship between patient and physician the neglected value of faith and points to tis purely ethical basis. The crucial problem is that the informed consensus, by its nature, represents a dilemma.
Dilemma cannot be avoided either by introducing order of rules, nor by precedent, nor by an algorithm from another field. It is always necessary to decide de novo in each and every specific case, the tool for this being the ability to make the right decision, or fronésis already observed by Aristotle, and then examined throughout history by a number of thinkers.
The second section outlines special cases of informed consensus in five clinical areas. In particular, it is often a prejudice discussion on euthanasia, genetics mainly in the context of predictive testing, drug testing on human subjects, taking and allocating organs for transplantation and viability of low birth weight neonates.
The book is intended for the general medical professionals and especially for doctors of all disciplines, including students of the last years of medicine. A deeper understanding of the nature of informed consensus as the backbone of the patient-doctor relationship is a prerequisite for its humanization.