2024-07-17 21:31:19
In a letter sent to teaching hospitals and medical schools across the country, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said Monday, April 1, that written consent must be obtained from patients before performing sensitive procedures such as pelvic and prostate exams.
The agency noted that it “is aware of media reports, as well as medical and scientific literature, highlighting instances where, as part of medical students’ courses of study and training, patients have been subjected to sensitive and intimate examinations, including pelvic, breast, prostate or rectal examinations, while under anesthesia without proper informed consent being obtained prior to the examination.”
“It is critically important that hospitals establish clear guidelines to ensure that providers and trainees performing these examinations first obtain and document informed consent from patients before performing sensitive examinations in all circumstances,” the agency stressed in its letter.
HHS also issued a new set of guidelines clarifying a long-standing requirement that hospitals obtain written informed consent as a condition of being reimbursed by Medicare and Medicaid.
“While we recognize that patient education is an important aspect of medical education, this guidance aligns with the standard of care of many major medical organizations, as well as state laws that have also enacted explicit protections,” HHS noted. “Informed consent is the law and is essential to maintaining trust in the patient-provider relationship and respecting patient autonomy.”
But that hasn’t always happened.
In 2020, a New York Times investigation found that hospitals, doctors and medical trainees sometimes performed pelvic exams on women under anesthesia, even when such exams were not medically necessary and when the patient had not given permission. Sometimes, these exams were done solely to educate medical students.
“Patients who participate in the education of future physicians need to be aware, they need to have the opportunity to consent, they need to have the same opportunity to participate in that education that they would be given if they were awake and fully clothed,” Ashley Weitz, who underwent an unauthorized pelvic exam while under sedation in an emergency room, told the Times. “We can only hope to have better trust in medicine when both patients and providers can expect a standard of care that prioritizes patient consent.”
More information
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides more information about patient privacy under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
FUENTES: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services