this has a neat tie in to a discussion i was having earlier surrounding government decision making, individual consent, and the right to life. when is one persons lack of consent to governmental action more important than the group need for consensus to protect the environment?
is consent manufactured if people agree to it, knowing the risks and negative consequences? for instance if i consent to drugs knowing they will save my life for another three years but blind me?
i agree that government makes some shitty decisions. where do we draw the line?
When we start talking about consent in a larger, social context it becomes a veritable moral and ethical minefield; no doubt about it.
However — at the end of the day, consent is still a personal matter.
This is why in medical ethics (as well as in the disability field), we talk about informed consent.
In the example you used, a doctor tells you "take this drug it will save your life" and you consent. You then find out afterwards that it will blind you. Yes, you did initially give your consent, but you were not appropriately informed if you didn't know of the consequences of blindness. Would you still have chosen to take the drug knowing you may go blind?
On the other side of this is informed denial, which the medical profession has a really, really big problem with. The problem is that all doctors (irrespective on your views on the profession) truly do believe and hold to the Hippocratic Oath: above all, do no harm. It is often heart-breaking to have a patient deny treatment you know will ease their pain. You do everything possible to properly inform them, and still they will not consent. It's bloody hard! And herein lies the ethical issue... as a medical professional, do you accept the informed denial of treatment? Whose will is more important?
I don't feel there is an easy answer to this.
The problem in the disability field is two-fold: can the participant give their consent; and if they do, do they truly understand what they are consenting to, given their intellectual disability?
A frikkin' minefield!
😊🙏🏽☯️
first off, i have a friend who does work similar to you. for little consents as "can i rub your back", its easy enough. for big decisions, no, i dont think they are able to understand enough to give consent. even normal people have a difficult time understanding doctor lingo, and many doctors refuse to take the time to explain in laymans terms. medical advocates should be a thing, to protect the interests of the patient if a family member cant or wont participate.
second, two sides to the "do no harm".
having worked in oncology for several years, and also from dealing with workmans comp doctors for over a decade, doctors who are arrogant or blind to their own lack of knowledge are far more common than one would think, and they can do harm without intent.
some doctors want to do what they think is best, and adhere to western medicine standards, which arent always the best way to address all symptoms. some doctors also believe that being the trained professional, only they know whats best for the patient, regardless of what the patient tells them. they fail to give their patient any credence.
example: i injured my shoulder at work. after doing some tests, the doctor diagnosed me with neck strain. I went thru years of therapy, but my symptoms never totally resolved. I was left with acute muscle strain from not being able to use my left arm properly.
The doctor negated my belief that my shoulder was involved and refused an MRI because the xray showed no issues. I could not afford to pay for my own MRI.
seven years later, after a severe re-occurence of my symptoms, i went to an outside doctor on my own dime, only to learn that my shoulder had been partially dislocated for seven years. after an arthroscopic surgery, that shoulder is 90% better. however it still left me with exacerbated muscle issues in my back and neck. because it was workmans comp, i had no recourse for damages other than medical expenses.
this is how consent gets thwarted. when the patient does not have the knowledge they put trust in a doctor. if a patient has no economic resources to combat the insurance system by hiring a lawyer, and the doctor refuses to be open to the patients own self knowledge, it becomes a betrayal of trust. its a slippery slope to prove the system meant harm, but at the same time they caused harm thru their own procedures and prejudices.
“We don’t know what we don’t know.”
There is a lot that can be said about how much knowledge any practitioner has. Unfortunately, this is an example of where “manufactured consent” exists in the medical field. Because how could someone who has gone to medical school get it wrong?
Modern medicine has had very good PR for about 80 years. They have successfully created a narrative that places them with godlike powers... and yet most of these doctors are flawed humans who make mistakes like the rest of us. Too late, we have a behemoth that is out of control unfortunately. The profession has over-taken the humanity of the individual practitioners.
how could someone who has gone to medical school get it wrong?
quite simply, hubris. medical schools should teach mandatory courses in modesty, how to listen, cross cultural communication, and being open to different belief systems outside of western medicine.
I remember the struggle it was for some oncology docs to non judgmentally treat faith based patients who believed that they could cure themselves with prayer. I also recall them trying to talk to hispanic patients who would say they understood and agreed when they didnt.
being trained to read signals, to explain with patience and compassion is priceless knowledge. The question is, how can they have gone to medical school and NOT learned this?
It all comes down to individual private property rights.