Experts stress good medical practices

FOR AN INFORMED CONSENT, RELATIVE HAS TO BE TOLD ABOUT THE RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH THE OPERATION ALONG WITH THE BENEFITS

LUCKNOW: A patient had to be provided certain additional rights if she or he was included in a clinical research by a doctor, said experts at the national seminar on good clinical practices and medical ethics here on Saturday.

The seminar was held at the Kalam Centre in King George’s Medical University, with medical education minister Ashutosh Tandon as the chief guest.

“Debarring the patient from those rights can have an adverse impact on the research outcome. Also as a medical practitioner, a doctor needs to take complete, written and informed consent of a patient before surgery,” said Prof Sandip Tiwari, HoD, Trauma Surgery department at the KGMU.

He said that if an attendant was told to sign a document before his or her relative’s operation and was not informed about the pros and cons of the operation, it could not be called informed consent.

“For an informed consent, the relative has to be told about the risks associated with the operation along with the benefits,” said Prof Tiwari.

The protocols for a patient included in a medical research provide that no money should be spent by the patient on drugs and diagnosis and neither on hospital stay. “Once the patient is included in research, the expenses are to be borne out of research funding,” said Prof Tiwari.