He'd seen a flyer posted on the bulletin board in his endocrinologist's office. I remember thinking that that was one of the more ethical ways to recruit patients. You simply put up a poster, and people who are interested will ask you, and people who don't, you don't bring it up to them. Provide the information for interested patients, and let them make the contact. Once a patient expresses interest in a clinical trial, the process of informed consent begins.
Informed consent involves much more than a patient's signature on a legal document.
I think it's extremely important that the document be reviewed in full with the patient and questions be answered. Allow patients time to ask questions and think about it. If you are an ethical, caring physician, and you truly want to help your patients, then you are going to take the time to do it right. It shouldn't be the patient's primary care physician if that physician is involved in the trial, says Dr. Rakatansky. While the person who is taking care of the patient presumably is sending the patient to the study because he or she thinks it's in that patient's best interest, an independent person getting the informed consent presumably doesn't have this bias.