Weighing Decisions in Medicine

• Doctors frequently deal with the issue of informed consent, and typically the ethical issues are left for the patients to decide. A doctor should explain the risks of a procedure as well as its potential benefits. A dilemma comes when, for example, a parent opts against a procedure a doctor is recommending for a child. If it is a procedure the doctor considers essential, the professional has to consider how medical governing authorities will rule on whatever decision is made.
  
  

When Is Enough Mental Health Care Information Enough?

• When addiction counselors deal with patients there is an ethical requirement to lay out what kind of impact the therapy will have as well as the potential impact of not undergoing therapy. However, revealing each and every process can blunt the effects of good treatment. Cynthia Geppert, in "Counselor, The Magazine for Addiction Professionals" writes that a good rule of thumb is to reveal the most common and potentially serious effects of treatment.
  
  

Informed Consent in Anthropology

• Anthropologists consider the ethics of the studies they undertake, and should seek to provide informed consent to their subjects. As an example, Lauren Clark and Ann Kingsolver, in briefing paper for the American Anthropological Association, said that people who could be negatively affected by any element of a study should be allowed to have a conversation about those possible impacts.
  
  

Informed Consent in Business Generally

• Anyone selling who sells goods or services can be accused by a customer of not providing enough information before a sale. The customer could either demand a refund or threaten to sue, claiming to have been unaware, for instance, of risks involved with the product. For example, reasonable people differ over how much information is necessary for a car seller to provide to a prospective buyer. Anyone who has sold a home has also weighed the question of how much information a buyer needs to know about the home on the market. The seller makes the decision, but after a sale a buyer may come to believe that decision was wrong.