What Your Doctor Didn't Tell You: Informed Consent Failures in Virginia Medical Practice

Informed consent cases represent a subtle but important category of Virginia medical malpractice. These claims aren't about whether a physician performed a procedure competently. They're about whether patients received enough information to make meaningful decisions about their own medical care.

Virginia law requires physicians to obtain truly informed consent before procedures carrying significant risks. That means explaining the nature of the procedure, material risks and benefits, reasonable alternatives, and consequences of refusing treatment. "Material" doesn't mean every possible complication—it means risks that reasonable patients would want to know before deciding whether to proceed.

We often see situations where physicians recommend specific treatments without adequately discussing alternatives. Surgery might be one option, but medication or physical therapy could also address the condition. When physicians fail to present these alternatives, patients can't make informed choices about which approach best fits their values, risk tolerance, and life circumstances.

Informed consent isn't satisfied by signed forms. Those forms prove a signature, nothing more. What matters under Virginia law is the actual conversation—did the physician explain risks in language the patient understood? Were alternatives discussed? Did the patient have opportunities to ask questions and consider options?

The standard in Virginia is what a reasonable physician would disclose in similar circumstances. But increasingly, courts recognize that what matters is what reasonable patients would want to know. Those perspectives don't always align. Physicians might consider certain risks too unlikely to warrant discussion, while patients facing those risks might strongly disagree.

In our practice, we encounter informed consent failures when physicians emphasize benefits while minimizing risks, rush patients into decisions without adequate time for consideration, or frame choices in ways that eliminate meaningful alternatives. Subtle pressure—"this is what I recommend, and we should schedule it soon"—can undermine truly informed decision-making.

These cases require proving not just that information was withheld, but that patients would have made different choices if properly informed. That's a subjective question, but Virginia law respects patient autonomy enough to recognize that inadequate information undermines the ability to exercise that autonomy.

Informed consent doctrine reflects a fundamental principle: patients have the right to make their own medical decisions, even if those decisions conflict with physician recommendations. But exercising that right requires information. When physicians withhold material information, whether through oversight or misguided paternalism, they rob patients of autonomy that Virginia law protects.

In our experience, strong informed consent cases involve clear evidence that material information wasn't disclosed, combined with compelling testimony about how that information would have changed the patient's decision. When those elements align, these cases vindicate the principle that medical decisions belong to patients, not physicians.