Madhava Setty

Primum non nocere, “first and foremost, I will do no harm” is a massive commitment, and, as it turns out, nuanced. How does a doctor know that they are not causing harm? They don’t. What doctors are really promising is that “given what I know, I will act and advise my patients in ways that will not bring harm to them”. What we are really promising is that we patients in ways that will not bring harm to them”. What we are really promising is that we will not intentionally harm our patients, no more.

… The reason why informed consent is so important is because there is so much uncertainty in medicine. What we know today is different from what was known yesterday. It’s always changing. It’s science after all. Ultimately people have their own relationship with uncertainty. That is why they are given the right to decide for themselves when medicine is practiced ethically.

The medical community is abandoning this pillar of medicine more and more. Though doctors and nurses most oaen obtain written consent before administering the Covid jabs, are they obtaining informed consent? Few people on the planet know what is exactly in these things. We don’t inform patients of all the possible side effects (that would take too much of our precious time). We, in most cases, don’t even explain the most important much of our precious time). We, in most cases, don’t even explain the most important metric of a preventative therapy like a vaccine: the number needed to vaccinate (NNV).