Phys · general-medicine

Medical Ethics, Capacity and Consent

Also known as medical ethics · bioethics · capacity assessment · decision-making capacity · competence · informed consent · advance care planning · advance directive · advance care directive · substitute decision-maker · best interests · confidentiality · mandatory reporting · Beauchamp and Childress · four principles · Mental Capacity Act 2005

Consultant-physician-depth guide to medical ethics, capacity and consent for FRACP DWE and DCE — the four principles of biomedical ethics (Beauchamp and Childress: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, justice), the functional two-stage test of capacity (understanding, retaining, using and weighing, communicating — Appelbaum 2007), the presumption of capacity and its decision-specific and time-specific nature, valid consent (informed, voluntary, capacitous), treatment without consent (emergency doctrine of necessity, mental health legislation, court order), advance care planning (binding advance refusals, values statements, ceilings of treatment, not-for-resuscitation orders that do not abandon), confidentiality and its limits (mandatory reporting, imminent risk, court order), and professional regulation (AHPRA, GMC, revalidation) — with the SPIKES protocol, the Mental Capacity Act 2005 five principles, and the ANZ guardianship and substitute decision-maker framework.