Properly litigating a personal injury case ensuring that our clients complete and total recovery of their losses is always the first and foremost priority of the experienced personal injury and medical malpractice attorneys at Powell, Zero, Mundy. If you require legal counsel and assistance in litigating a claim for damages resulting from a personal injury based on medical malpractice, contact Powell, Zero, Mundy. We are experienced in fighting insurance companies to assert the rights of our clients. We are also experienced in helping our clients justly and fairly settle their medical malpractice matter.

A release/consent form is a pre-printed legal form containing blank spaces where a health care professional provides information specific to the patient’s medical procedure. Health care providers list potential complications regardless of the levels of severity, including the risk of death on a consent form. The form ensures that the patient gives his or her informed consent for the medical procedure prior to the procedure’s performance.

Informed consent is the patient’s specific consent to the proposed medical procedure. Before informed consent may be given by a patient, the health care provider must inform the patient of all of the risks and complications that may reasonably occur during the scheduled procedure, regardless of severity. Once a patient is fully informed about these risks, then and only then may she give informed consent to the medical procedure.

Provided that a consent form adequately identifies the medical procedure’s known risks and the patient was mentally competent and under no pressure to sign the form, the patient cannot bring a claim against the doctor for lack of informed consent. However, if the patient was not competent to sign the form due to dementia, intoxication, or the effects of medication, the patient may potentially have a claim for lack of informed consent.

A legal form cannot bar or prevent an individual patient from filing a claim if the medical treatment constituted negligence. Some healthcare providers may mandate that patients submit the resolution of any claim before an arbitrator rather than in a court before a judge or jury. If a doctor or hospital causes injury because he or she acted negligently, no legal form can bar a medical malpractice claim.