Dr. Albert Jonsen, ‘ informed consent’ backer
Patients have a right to tell their doctors what kind of treatment they want, said Albert Jonsen, and doctors have an obligation to listen.
Jonsen, one of the founding scholars of the field of bioethics and among the first advocates of the concept of informed consent, helped doctors and patients to navigate their complex relationship and to understand, as he said, that “ethical questions are raised with every scientific discovery.”
Jonsen died Oct. 21 in his San Francisco home after a brief illness. He was 89.
Jonsen was a doctor not of medicine but of religious studies. But his widely acclaimed 1982 masterwork, “Clinical Ethics,” became a standard for physicians in all fields, as well as a required text for medical students.
“In order to practice excellent clinical care in modern medicine, clinicians must understand ethical issues such as informed consent, decisional capacity, surrogate decision making, truth telling, confidentiality, privacy, the distinction between research and clinical care, and endoflife care,” he wrote in the book’s introduction.
In discussing patient autonomy, he wrote that a respect for persons “applies to every encounter between persons, regardless of their situation, stage, or state of life.”
A native of San Francisco, Jonsen received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Gonzaga University, another master’s degree from Santa Clara University and, in 1967, a doctorate from Yale University. He was a member of the Jesuit order and a Roman Catholic priest from 1962 until resigning in 1976.
He taught at Loyola University in Los Angeles before moving to San Francisco and serving as president of the University of San Francisco from 1969 to 1972.
Two years later, he was appointed to a national commission formed following the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis study, in which hundreds of Black test subjects with syphilis who were promised medical treatment from the U. S. Public Health Service were given placebos.
Jonsen helped develop rules for matters involving the human fetus, children and mentally incapacitated persons as research subjects.
Friends described Jonsen as a kindly, witty philosopher who posed questions to doctors and urged them to find the path forward for themselves.
“He was a little like Socrates,” said his longtime friend and fellow bioethicist, San Francisco physician-William Andereck. “He would give a lecture and people from all over would just show up and listen.”
Jonsen was a longtime professor at the medical schools of the University ofWashington and the University of California, San Francisco. From 2002 until his death, he continued working at the California Pacific Medical Center, through the Program of Medicine and Human Values.
As medical advances and breakthroughs became more commonplace, Jonsen said the need for bioethics and the obligation to consult frankly and forthrightly with patients increased.
“Fifty years ago, it didn’t matter as much because doctors couldn’t do as much,” Andereck said, reflecting on his friend’s work. “Now we have an obligation to be transparent.”
In his spare time, Jonsen read, listened to music and composed limericks. He spoke five languages. He and his wife of 44 years, Liz, were season ticket holders at the San Francisco Opera and world travelers, often returning to Lake Como in Italy.
He is survived by his wife and by siblings Robert Jonsen of Novato, Richard Jonsen of Denver and Ann Marie Carrick of Concord. Plans for a memorial celebration are pending.