Abstract
emplified in (draft) legal rules to emphasize patients' rights in medical treatment (Medical Contract Act) and protect human subjects in clinical trials (Medical Research with Human Beings Bill). The aim of these regulations is to give patients an active role in medical decisionmaking. Appeals to patients' rights and legal visions of informed consent alone do not adequately enable patient involvement in medical decisionmaking. Legal requirements, if regarded as merely procedural obligations, may even constitute an obstacle to doctorpatient communication.1 Rules applied when the subject is uneducated function only as an ideology.2 Empirical studies suggest that as a result of illness, patients tend to feel they must do whatever the doctor suggests, and tend to become less aggressive in seeking alternatives and passive out of a sense of powerlessness in the face of massive technical information.3 Studies have shown that relevant infor-
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