Respecting the Autonomy of Competent Patients

Abstract

The weight of recent opinion, as well as a new body of law, supports the rights of competent adults to have information about their medical condition and to participate in decisions concerning their health.^{1 2 3 4 5} This is not to say that patients are invited to make technical decisions that they may not be qualified to make; rather, they have the right to make the value judgments that are a part of most important medical decisions and that they are uniquely qualified to make.The article by Bedell and Delbanco in this issue of the Journal tells us something about how the . . .