Informed consent: patient rights and the doctor's duty of disclosure in South Africa.

In this paper, read at a conference on 'Law, Medicine and Human Rights', at Sun City in August 1987, the South African case law and legal opinion on the patient's right to be informed of, and the doctor's corresponding duty to disclose, the risks and dangers inherent in the medical intervention involved are systematized, expounded and discussed. The conclusion arrived at is that, although a variety of issues concerning the scope and test of disclosure have not yet been settled, the principle of patient autonomy and its corollary, informed consent, have received clear recognition in South African medical law.