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The legal and ethical requirements related to an anaesthetist's communication with patients in preparing them for anaesthesia, assisting them in making appropriate decisions and obtaining consent in a formal sense are complex. Doing these things well takes time, skill and sensitivity. The primary focus should be to adequately prepare patients for surgery and to ensure that they are sufficiently well informed to make the choices that best meet their own needs. This is just an affirmation of the importance of patient-centred care. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the conceptual, ethical and legal issues associated with the process of informed consent for anaesthetists in Australia and New Zealand. A chart is presented that shows the systemic, anaesthetic and patient factors which may lead to the failure of achieving legal standard of informed consent. The authors explain the purpose of anaesthesia and the risks associated with anaesthesia. Among the elements of informed consent include threshold elements and information elements.

The church and other community organisations have a legitimate role to play in influencing public policy. However, intervention by the church and other religious bodies in recent litigation in Australia and the United Kingdom raises questions about the appropriateness of such bodies being permitted to intervene directly in the court process as amici curiae. We argue that there are dangers in such bodies insinuating their doctrine under the guise of legal argument in civil proceedings, but find it difficult to enunciate a principled distinction between doctrine and legal argument. We advise that judges should exercise caution in dealing with amicus submissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Explores contrasting legal and medical approaches to policy making on genetic testing and the control and use of human tissue and genetic information, especially in the intra-familial context. Incidence and types of genetic disorders; Purposes of genetic testing; Unique features of genetic testing and diagnosis.

Three of the four commentators endorse our concerns about intervention by the Roman Catholic church as an amicus curiae in civil litigation, with few reservations. One commentary rejects our arguments in toto. We deal first with the three commentaries that support our arguments; secondly, with the reservations and qualifications in those commentaries, and thirdly, with the commentary that totally rejects our arguments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Comments on an article about the inconsistency between laws that allow abortion based on the mother's will. Legal aspects of abortion; Law that governs the clinical management of fetus in the utero; Relevance of mother's consent for abortion; Rights of a child.

Abstract: To investigate the association between competence to give informed consent to treatment, specific symptomology and diagnostic category, 110 inpatients diagnosed with DSM-IV acute schizophrenia (n =64), schizoaffective disorder (n =25) and bipolar affective disorder (n =21) were interviewed using the MacArthur Competence Assessment Tool for Treatment (MacCAT-T) and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS). Results indicated no significant difference in competence between the three disorders. Elevated positive, cognitive and excitement PANSS factor scores had lower MacCAT-T scores. Further analyses indicated symptoms that impair cognition; particularly, conceptual disorganisation and poor attention were most consistently related to poor performance on competence tests. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]