"After 120 years of experience regarding informed consent in America, how can we still be sitting in a place where it's not mandated for patients to be told upfront and in writing, WHO will be performing their surgery?" - Heather Steiger We believe current federal guidelines encourage and enable the unethical practice of ghost surgeries. Scroll down to read about the "Interpretive Guidelines" hospitals must follow. Believe it or not, surgeons are not legally required to release the name of the surgeon or surgeon(s) WHO will be performing surgical procedures on you. Instead, they're required to list only one name...the name of the attending surgeon in charge of the overall outcome. Federal law also only requires the attending surgeon, that you specifically hire, to be physically present during the critical part of your surgery. Each surgeon is allowed to make their own decision about what that critical part is and in some cases, hospitals write their own clauses into their informed consent which attempt to take these legal obligations away.
Read the details below which reveal loopholes in current US law. Then write to The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid and your Congressional Representative (contact information to your right). Demand that current "interpretive guidelines" regarding the informed consent be changed. America has prided itself when it comes to citizens having the right to choose what happens to his/her own bodies. Why don't we have the right to be told, in writing, the name and/or names of all surgeons who will be participating in our own surgical procedures? |
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