Discordance between the information that a doctor provides to a patient and the information that the patient wants to know regarding the risks associated with his/her treatment plan can have significant medicolegal implications. Recently, a pilot study was conducted to address this information gap between the doctors and the patients with rheumatoid arthritis regarding the possible side effects of the treatment therapies. They also describe an effective informed consent process that practicing rheumatologists can deploy for such patients in the Middle East.
Informed consent holds ethical and legal significance in medical practice. Rheumatologists are at high risk of facing medicolegal issues owing to the complex and unpredictable course of rheumatologic disorders. In addition, the varied possible adverse effects of the drugs used to manage rheumatoid arthritis (RA) further complicate…
