Precourt v. Frederick

In Harnish v. Children’s Hosp. Medical Center, 387 Mass. 152, 155 (1982), we said that “a physician owes to his patient the duty to disclose in a reasonable manner all significant medical information that the physician possesses or reasonably should possess that is material to an intelligent decision by the patient whether to undergo a proposed procedure.” We defined “materiality” as “the significance a reasonable person, in what the physician knows or should know is his patient’s position, would attach to the disclosed risk or risks in deciding whether to submit or not to submit to surgery…