著者

中條 雅美 鈴木 正子

出版者

日本医学哲学・倫理学会

雑誌

医学哲学 医学倫理 (ISSN:02896427)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.18, pp.102-112, 2000-12-15 (Released:2018-02-01)

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Informed Consent for medical treatment has been argued as being not only a doctors obligation but also patients' rights to obtain their desired "quality of life". Nowadays nurses are beginning to have a role in Informed Consent. We, nurses, expect that this role should exist to enhance the patients' rights. So we believe this role is needed. But especially in medical treatment, this responsibility of nurses remains ambiguous. So I expect the law should define clearly a nurses responsibility about medical treatments. Though much literature refers to the doctors obligation, there is little referring to the obligation of nurses. As a legal requirement of medicine, nurses as well as doctors must make an effort to explain the treatment appropriately and to gain the patients' understanding. But this dose not state the nurses' obligation clearly. The purpose of this paper is to define what the nurses' role in Informed Consent for medical treatments should be. So I tried to interpret the nurses' legal obligation in Informed Consent for medical treatments. And then, I tried to compare the role of legal interpretation with that of my own experienced. As a result, I found that the nurses' role does not have the responsibility for Informed Consent in principle. But if nurses practice only this legal role, they can't carry out the essential role of nursing, which is to assist so that patients can live a better life. I found that to be able to interpret the role has an obligation to pay attention to Informed Consent about medical treatments. According to this obligation, despite the legal interpretation, nurses would be able to carry out the essential role of nursing. This role would then be equal to a nurse's ethical position which is to bean, advocate of patients. Consequently, in my view, nurses must carry out the role of Informed Consent for medical treatments from an ethical position, while at the same time understanding the law in which they practice.