Information-Based Decision-Making in the Medical Context

Key Speakers: Oonagh Corrigan, Claus Hoeyer, Stefan Timmermans

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In recent years the relationship between the biomedical system and society has become scrutinized. This is partly due to rapid advances in biomedical technologies, as well as to general changes in society, which are reflected in new forms of the doctor-patient relationship. Our topic of interest is the question of decision-making within the field of biomedicine. In various areas informed consent has been established as a space in which the question of “adequate” information and possibilities of decision-making are negotiated. The workshop focuses on the process of decision-making within this setting by referring to its broader contexts. Central issues addressed are political factors, the role of standardization in biomedicine, concepts of tissue donation, and the clinical framing of informed consent.

This workshop is organised within the project “Informed Consent: Space of Negotiation between Biomedicine and Society”. The project aims at understanding how people who get confronted with consent forms and its concomitant conversation perceive and interpret the provided information. We are interested in how they arrange the information in regard to their pre-existing knowledge and experiences as well as in the situatedness of the informed consent process in a wider clinical and biomedical context.

In order to allow for ample discussion time, the whole-day workshop will be organised around four plenary sessions and a closing panel.