Informed consent is a moral imperative

Abstract

"In their paper (1), Kotrashetti and colleagues present the results of a survey pertaining to the knowledge and practice of informed consent (IC) by dental practitioners in an Indian city. This is an important topic because although IC is considered to be an essential component of ethical healthcare delivery, medical as well as dental, very little information exists about its application in developing countries. Even less is known about this in the field of dentistry in the South Asian region. We lack systematic inquiry into existing IC practices among healthcarerelated professionals to help us ascertain whether the process is being used to fulfil its primary objective to empower patients, or whether it is merely a mechanical exercise undertaken as part of hospital policy. Without this information it is not possible either to understand the nature and extent of the problem or to formulate the corrective steps that may be necessary