On the Ottoman consent documents for medical interventions and the modern concept of informed consent.

Full Abstract

Information for patients prior to medical intervention is one of the principles of modern medical practice. In this study, we looked at an earlier practice of this principle. Ottoman judges had record books called sicil. One of the categories in sicils was the consent documents called riza senedi, which was a patient-physician contract approved by the courts. These contracts were especially for the protection of physicians from punishment if the patient dies. It is not clear whether patients were informed properly or not. Consent for minors was obtained from parents. However, a situation where an adult does not have the capacity to consent, was not clear in these documents. Any sign of free withdrawal of consent was not found in these records. Due to the legal system of Ottoman State, these contracts were related to Islamic law rather than modern civil law. We aim, in this paper, to present a legal practice, which is possible to consider as an early example of the informed consent practice.

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Author information

Author/s: Kara, Mahmut A (MA); Aksoy, Sahin (S);

Affiliation: Department of History of Medicine and Deontology, Ege University Medical School, 35100 Bornova, Izmir, Turkey. malpertunga(-atsign-)superonline.com

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: Historical Article; Journal Article

Journal: Saudi medical journal (Saudi Med J), published in Saudi Arabia. (Language: eng)

Reference: 2006-Sep; vol 27 (issue 9) : pp 1306-10

Dates: Created 2006/09/04; Completed 2007/05/18; Revised 2008/06/23;

PMID: 16951763, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 12/26/2008)

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MeSH headings (categories)

This article was linked to the MESH Headings shown below.

Humans
Informed Consent - history; legislation & jurisprudence
Islam - history
Manuscripts, Medical - history
Patient Rights
Turkey

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