Informazione, consenso e riservatezza nella relazione medico-paziente. Dalla deoontologia alla 1.675/96

"Information", "consent" and "privacy" are three key notions in coming to grips with any analysis of the transformation that has been affecting the relationship between the doctor and his patient for several years, in Italy as elsewhere, and for evaluating the impact that can be exerted on it by the normative tools entrused with disciplining a field that has traditionally been the preserve of medical deontology and has only recently come with within the scope of legal jurisdiction. After calling attention to the liberal model of the doctor-patient relationship, which has been increasingly successful, to the detriment of the paternalistic model, the author focuses on the norms designed to guarantee the privacy of information about an individual's state of health as enumerated in Law N°675/96 and the subsequent legislative decrees issued to transpose Law N°676/96. Her analysis of these provisions, made in parallel with an examination of the provisions covering the issues of information, consent and privacy contained in the code of medical deontology passed in October 1998, leads to her raising a series of critical points and voicing the theory that the pieces of legislation in question constitute an example that legislators would do well to avoid repeating in future if they want to avoid providing further arguments to support the theory that there is preferably no room for law, and especially for legislation, in questions concerning the human body and health.