Court Opinion

ID: 9725692
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 12:00:43.347405+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:18.158313
License: Public Domain

Wright, L,
concurring.
I concur in the result. Nebraska’s “informed consent” requirement is found in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 44-2816 (Reissue 1993), which provides in part: “Informed consent shall mean consent to a procedure based on information which would ordinarily be provided to the patient under like circumstances by health care providers engaged in a similar practice in the locality or in similar localities.”
There are two different theories regarding the extent of a physician’s duty to disclose the risks of a particular treatment or procedure — the “professional” theory and the “material risk” *761theory. The professional theory holds that the duty is measured by the standard of a reasonable medical practitioner under the same or similar circumstances, and must be determined by expert medical testimony establishing the prevailing standard and the defendant practitioner’s departure therefrom. Eccleston v. Chait, 241 Neb. 961, 492 N.W.2d 860 (1992); Smith v. Weaver, 225 Neb. 569, 407 N.W.2d 174 (1987).
This is contrasted with the material risk theory, which holds that the duty to disclose is measured by the patient’s need for information to balance the probable risks against the probable benefits in making the decision to either undergo or forgo the treatment proposed. Expert testimony is not required to establish the physician’s duty to disclose, and the fact finder can decide, without the aid of a medical expert, whether a reasonable person in the patient’s position would have considered the risk significant in making his or her decision. Id.
As we pointed out in Eccleston, “[t]he material risk theory protects a patient’s ‘right of physical self-determination [because it] mandates that the scope of a physician’s duty to disclose therapeutic risks and alternatives be governed by the patient’s informational needs.’ ” 241 Neb. at 968,492 N.W.2d at 864.
We are bound to follow the standard established by § 44-2816, but I do not believe the reasons for this law are sound. A physician should be required to inform the patient of the possible risks and alternatives. The duty should not be measured by what other physicians are doing in the same or similar locality. It is the rights of the patient that must be considered first, not the standard of practice in a particular locality.