Malpractice Litigation for Uninformed Consent Implications for Physical Therapists

Although physicians generally are expected to secure their patients ' informed consent to medical treatment, an emerging body of legal opinion holds that in certain situations nurses and allied health care professionals may be found similarly responsible. Failure of a health care provider to protect a patient's right of informed consent might result in a lawsuit alleging that serious harm was sustained needlessly because the patient plaintiff was not informed of certain significant risks of or consequences that resulted from treatment. As a profes-sional group that puts patients at risk of harm during treatment, physical thera-pists need to know about their legal duty to facilitate a patient's awareness of and consent to treatment. This article discusses the nature of that duty and how a patient plaintiff might try to prove negligence against a physical therapist who allegedly fails to secure a valid statement of informed consent. The article also provides recommendations so that physical therapists might protect themselves from malpractice suits alleging "uninformed " consent. Key Words: Informed consent, Malpractice, Physical therapy