Volume 5, Number 2

Interview
Malpractice Risk Issues of Informed Consent

Joseph DiGiacomo, MD

Dr. DiGiacomo is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, trained in Psychiatry, Internal Medicine and Cardiology. He is actively involved in teaching residents and medical students with special emphasis on interviewing, psychiatric assessment, and patient care.

He consults on chronic mental illness and difficult-to-treat patients, is involved and published in forensic issues, and is an examiner with the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. Of particular interest is the use of pharmacotherapy in the psychotherapeutic process, psychocardiology, and sudden death.

Editorial Commentary

In this interview, Dr. Frederic Flach and Dr. Joseph DiGiacomo discuss informed consent--how to definitively, thoroughly, and in as nonthreatening a way as possible, alert patients and their families to such risks, and be reassured that they understand what has been told to them.

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