Matthies v. Mastromonaco

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

POLLOCK, J.

This appeal presents the question whether the doctrine of informed consent requires a physician to obtain the patient’s consent before implementing a nonsurgical course of treatment. It questions also whether a physician, in addition to discussing with the patient treatment alternatives that the physician recommends, should discuss medically reasonable alternative courses of treatment that the physician does not recommend. We hold that to obtain a patient’s informed consent to one of several alternative courses of treatment, the physician…