Your Rights, Your Body: Why You Can Refuse Surgery And Why Your Doctor Should Not Pursue It

19 October 2015 by Jonathan Phillips

There is much controversy in the news these days about abortion and a woman's right to make choices about her own body. It says a lot when so many other types of surgery offered to patients are afforded the courtesy of refusal (meaning patients have the right to refuse surgical treatment of any kind). If you have recently been told by a doctor that you need surgery to treat a health problem, but the doctor is trying to convince you to have more surgery than you really want or need, you have a right to refuse that as well. Pursuing you and the surgery procedures that are not medically necessary is grounds for personal injury and malpractice lawsuits, and here is what personal injury lawyers would tell you to do.

Refuse Any Treatments You Do Not Need and Are Not Comfortable With

There are some horror stories that come out of hospitals and delivery rooms, but you do not need to add to them. Your lawyer would tell you that your body is your own, and you can refuse any and all surgeries. Even if a doctor tells you that a surgery is medically necessary, you can refuse it. Cancer patients who no longer want treatment can refuse too, so you have the right to refuse surgical procedures with which you are not comfortable and/or do not need.

Get a Second (or Third!) Opinion

One doctor's opinion of what types of treatment you should get is not necessarily the same opinion shared by all doctors. Before you allow a doctor to perform surgery on you, get a second opinion. Get a third or fourth opinion too, if you feel you cannot trust the opinion of the second doctor. Then get all of their opinions in writing and take them back to the first doctor who told you that you needed surgery. Keep copies of these documents so that you have proof that shows you did not want the extra surgery. (There have been instances where doctors have made the decision to perform surgeries patients did not need or want, or coerce patients into having the surgeries anyway, and you need to prove that you did not agree to it.)

Do Not Sign Any Medical Release Forms Until You Read Them Completely

Just like contracts with a lawyer, anything you sign in the hospital or clinic is legally binding. Read it all, and if you have any questions, contact a medical malpractice lawyer right away. If the doctor threatens you or manipulates you into signing anything you do not want to sign, it still falls under personal injury and medical malpractice because the doctor used unethical means to do something he or she wanted, and not what you wanted.

If you think you may have been coerced into surgery you did not want, or if you have any other concerns regarding the ethics of a procedure, do not hesitate to contact a personal injury lawyer, such as those at Otorowski Johnston Morrow & Golden P.L.L.C.

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