Abstract
Informed consent (henceforth IC) has been so far discussed with a special reference to such an issue as each patient's self-decision making. In the United States, however, we find these days an idea beginning to be formed to try to define IC by taking note of not only patients but various relations between those concerned including patients. There seem two points of view of the concept of IC: One is that importance should be attached to the relation between patients and their families when patients make their self-decision in IC; The other is that importance should be given to the relation between doctors and patients, the significance of which is to try to define the concept of IC by emphasizing the relation between doctors and patient in IC. In this paper, therefore, the present writer thinks that the concept of IC should include: first, patients stand in a mutual relation between doctors and their families; second, in the relation between patients and persons concerned, the former will before anything else should be respected in their medical- ecision making. In conclusion, to realize what has been mentioned above, the writer proposes that IC should be divided into two processes: one is to think of medical treatment and the other is for patients to decide their medical treatment.
