duty to inform

Which translation, when

Why

Duty to inform is a trap of a phrase, because German medical law runs two separate duties where English tends to speak once of informing the patient. The first is the Aufklärungspflicht of § 630e BGB, whose function is to make consent possible: before a measure the treating party must explain all circumstances essential to the consent, in particular the nature, extent, implementation, expected consequences and risks of the measure as well as its necessity, urgency, suitability and prospects of success. The form is prescribed and matters in litigation. The explanation must be given orally, by the treating party or by a person with the necessary training, and printed forms may only supplement the conversation; it must be given early enough that the patient can weigh the decision without pressure, so a consent form pushed across immediately before an operation regularly fails; and where several methods with materially different burdens, risks or prospects of success come into consideration, the alternatives must be named. The sanction is severe, though not unqualified: without effective explanation the consent is ineffective, and a medically perfect intervention remains an unlawful bodily injury; § 630e Abs. 3 BGB dispenses with the explanation where special circumstances make it exceptionally unnecessary, in particular where the measure cannot be postponed or the patient has expressly waived it, and the treating side may further argue that the patient would have consented even on proper explanation, an objection the burden of proof entry places. The second duty is the Informationspflicht of § 630c BGB, which is not about consent at all. It covers explaining the diagnosis, the therapy and the course of treatment, the duty to disclose recognisable treatment errors on request or where necessary to avert danger, and the economic information: where the treating party knows that the costs will not be covered, the patient must be told in text form before treatment begins. English has no ready pair for this split, so a translation should name the German provisions rather than smooth them into one duty to inform, and the consent itself, the Einwilligung of § 630d BGB, belongs with the consent entry’s vocabulary.

Typical mistakes

• Aufklärung under § 630e BGB prepares consent while Information under § 630c BGB covers the course of treatment and costs, so merging them into one duty to inform loses which failure makes an intervention unlawful.
• The explanation must be oral and in good time, so a signed form alone does not discharge the duty however complete its wording.
• Without effective explanation the consent fails and the intervention counts as an unlawful injury, subject only to the narrow exceptions of § 630e Abs. 3 BGB, so describing the duty as a formality understates it.

What matters

Preparing German consent documentation for an English-speaking clinic: the text should keep Aufklärung and Information apart, describe the oral conversation as the operative step, and flag the economic information duty of § 630c BGB separately.

Examples