Court Opinion

ID: 9762721
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 02:29:54.553861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:29:36.915411
License: Public Domain

CIRILLO, President Judge Emeritus,
dissenting:
¶ 1 Because the effect of the majority’s decision to vacate and remand the instant case for a new trial impermissibly expands the informed consent doctrine beyond its traditional and fundamental roots, I must respectfully dissent.
The goal of the informed consent doctrine is to provide the patient with material information which is necessary to determine whether or not to proceed with the surgical procedure. Sinclair v. Block, 534 Pa. 563, 570, 633 A.2d 1137, 1140 (1993). If this vital information regarding risks, complications, and alternatives to surgery, which a reasonable person in the patient’s condition would have considered significant, is not *204disclosed to the patient, the surgeon is held liable. SeeGouse [v. Cassel, 532 Pa. 197, 202, 615 A.2d 331, 333 (1992)].
Rowinsky v. Sperling, 452 Pa.Super. 215, 681 A.2d 785 (1996) (Cirillo, P.J.E.).
¶ 2 In Kaskie v. Wright, 403 Pa.Super. 334, 589 A.2d 213 (1991), our court was faced with the issue of whether the doctrine of informed consent can be expanded to include information other than that which concerns medical treatment by surgical procedure. Specifically, the plaintiffs, parents of their deceased minor son, brought an action against the surgeon who operated on their son. The basis of the plaintiffs’ complaint centered around the fact that they were not informed prior to surgery that the surgeon was both an alcoholic and was unlicensed to practice medicine in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The Kaskie court refused to find that the plaintiffs made out a case of lack of informed consent where the personal weaknesses and professional credentials of the surgeon operating on their son were not disclosed. Rather, the court stated:
[TJhere is no allegation here that appellants were uninformed about the particular procedures their son underwent irrespective of the surgeon performing them. We too refuse to expand the informed consent doctrine to include matters not specifically germane to surgical or operative treatment.
Id. at 216-17.
¶ 3 The majority believes its decision today is consistent with the ruling in Ka-skie. Specifically, the majority states:
The court [in Kaskie] considered this claim in view of the defendant’s statute of limitations defense but in so doing commented that it refused to expand the doctrine of informed consent to absent information which consists of facts personal to the treating physician. Our ruling does not differ with these comments. It is not necessary in every case for a physician to disclose matters such as experience, credentials or any personal problems. However, where a patient seeks to discover this information by asking the physician these direct questions, that patient deems such information important in the very personal decision of which physician to choose, and a physician who obtains “consent” by providing misinformation, does not have the true consent of the patient.
¶4 The trial court’s holding carves out an exception to the informed consent doctrine that effectively redefines a “reasonable patient” and, as a result, dilutes the jury’s function by virtue of the verdict being vacated on such evidentiary grounds. See Southard v. Temple University Hospital, 731 A.2d 603 (Pa.Super.1999) (“Generally, it is the fact finder who determines whether information is material in an informed consent action.”); Sagala v. Tavares, 367 Pa.Super. 573, 533 A.2d 165, 168 (1987) (“the determination of what a reasonable patient would do or consider significant under certain circumstances is for the jury to decide.”).
¶ 5 A physician’s personal experience with regard to having performed a certain operative procedure is certainly an important decision. However, such a consideration is not “germane to surgical or operative treatment,” Kaskie, supra at 217, and, therefore, is not properly classified as a basis for an “informed consent” cases. See Southard, supra at 612 n. 13 (“the personal characteristics of a particular physician are only tangential to a surgical procedure.”). Rather, such claim is more properly rooted in a negligence or intentional misrepresentation action.
¶ 6 Accordingly, I would affirm the verdict in favor of Appellees where such excluded information does not concern the risks, complications, and alternatives to surgery, and, therefore, is not a factor in the determination of whether a patient has given his or her informed consent for a surgical procedure.