Difficult decisions: a critical analysis of consent to high-risk medical procedures

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Consent is the cornerstone of ethics as applied to healthcare and is central to the relationship between healthcare and the law. Whilst no-one would deny the importance of seeking consent to high-risk medical procedures, much depends on the practical manner in which this is done. By studying consent for high-risk procedures with the participation of patients and their health care providers, we will both test the limits of consent and find practical ways to address those limits. In doing so, the project will re-cast consent processes in a way that better accommodates the contingencies of clinical practice in high-risk settings in which patient autonomy is often compromised. Because this reformulation of consent will be grounded in the realities of high-risk clinical practice, our findings will reflect the needs and values of relevant stakeholders (patient and health professionals) and more likely to make a significant contribution to patient care and health policy. This project also addresses what the High Court of Australia has acknowledged as widespread weaknesses in the common formulation of consent in medicine. Finally this project, which operates in an important area of overlap between the law and medicine, will show how these disciplines can work jointly to serve the interests of all Australians, and Australian society.