Paul G. Gebhard; Lawyer Coined the Phrase ‘Informed Consent’

Paul G. Gebhard, 69, the attorney credited with creating the phrase “informed consent.” Gebhard first used the term in court in a 1957 medical malpractice case in which a patient contended that a physician at a Stanford University hospital had not fully disclosed the risk in a recommended treatment. A California appellate court ruling in that case helped codify the doctrine of informed consent, which requires doctors to clearly disclose any possible risks as well as rewards of a proposed medical procedure or treatment. Gebhard, who represented physicians organizations, used the term in a friend of the court brief he filed on behalf of the American College of Surgeons. Educated at Yale and Harvard Law School, Gebhard was the senior partner in the government, health care and association group of the Chicago law firm of Jenner & Block. On Wednesday in Chicago of cancer.