Conn. Civ. Jury Instr. 3.8-4

The theory of informed consent imposes a duty upon a physician that is completely separate and

distinct from the responsibility to skillfully diagnose and treat the patient’s medical condition. A

physician has a duty to disclose all known material risks of the proposed procedure. A material

risk is risk that a reasonably prudent person in the patient’s position would have found

significant in deciding whether or not to submit to the proposed procedure. The physician has a

duty to give a patient whose situation permits it all information material to the decision to

undergo the proposed procedure. This duty includes a responsibility to advise the patient of

feasible alternatives. The duty to warn of alternatives exists only when there are feasible

alternatives available.

The plaintiff must prove both that there was a failure to disclose a known material risk of a

proposed procedure and that such failure was a proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injury. In order

to find proximate cause in this context, you must find that a disclosure of the material risks of the

proposed procedure would have resulted in a decision by a reasonably prudent person in the

patient’s position not to submit to the proposed procedure. The duty to inform is not determined

by the plaintiff’s particular reaction had the information been given. The standard is what a

reasonably prudent person in the patient’s position would have decided if suitably informed of all

material risks.