In article <3af3e96e.2223997 at news.freeserve.net>, James Teo
<james at teoth.fsnet.co.uk> writes
>On Wed, 02 May 2001 18:01:47 GMT, "Anastasia"
><towanda at blueyonder.co.uk> wrote:
>>>Hi I'm doing a study on consenting patients for Diagnostic Lumbar Punctures
>>/ Spinal Taps.
>>I was wondering how patients are consented in other areas, particularly
>>whether verbal or written consent is obtained for the procedure.
>>Any information would be useful,
>>I've only done one, and it only involved verbal consent (after alot of
>persuasion). The patient was behaving oddly and the suspicion was
>encephalitis so I don't know how much his consent was worth.
I worked in clinical neurology (before defecting to the more rarefied world
of psychiatry), did hundreds of LPs, and it was always verbal consent -
except in the following situations:
1. Patient comatose/confused/otherwise unable to give consent, LP needed to
determine cause of problem - same as doing a blood test in similar situation
2. On the very rare occasions when it was necessary to have the LP
performed by a radiologist under CT guidance. I can only remember this
happening twice- once when the patient was hugely obese and it didn't seem
possible to do it without CT, the other time was in a lady with severe
scoliosis where it was very hard to say where the anatomical landmarks
really were so safer to do CT-guided LP. Anyway the radiologists treated it
as a procedure that required written (i.e. signed) consent.
This was in London by the way, don't know how far afield you were casting
your net for info.
I don't really know what the logical basis, if any, is for deciding at what
point a procedure needs written consent. If an LP were to require this then
why not a blood test? Although in the current climate it will probably,
before long, be necessary to get people to sign a form before one can even
speak to them.
Anyway, hope this helps
--
Nick Medford