• Iva Sorta-Bilajac Turina and Šupak Smolčić Vesna V 1Department of Social Medicine, Teaching Institute of Public Health of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Rijeka, Croatia; 2Department of Environmental M.
• 1Department of Social Medicine, Teaching Institute of Public Health of Primorje-Gorski Kotar County, Rijeka, Croatia; 2Department of Environmental Medicine, School of Medicine, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia; 3Clinical Department of Laboratory Diagnostics, Rijeka University Hospital Centre, Rijeka, Croatia; 4Department of Medical Informatics, School of Medicine, University of Rijeka, Rijeka, Croatia.
• Acta Clin Croat. 2019 Sep 1; 58 (3): 497-507.

AbstractThis paper deliberates on the place and role of informed consent in everyday clinical laboratory practice. Taking into account international ethical guidelines such as the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, the Declaration of Helsinki of the World Medical Association, and Croatian national laws and codes such as the Act on the Protection of Patients' Rights, the Act on Medical Biochemistry, the Code of Ethics of Medical Biochemists and Medical Deontology, the Act on Healthcare Services, and the Code of Ethics of the Croatian Chamber of Healthcare Workers, an overview is given on the actual implementation of the aforementioned recommendations and regulations. A distinction between consent to a medical procedure and consent to enrolment in a research protocol is strongly stressed out. Special emphasis is placed on the role of specialists in laboratory medicine and masters of medical biochemistry in the process of obtaining informed consent. The design of an 'informed consent interview' is to be taken into consideration. Additional deliberation is needed on the option of 'broad consent'. It is concluded that informed consent should represent an important and routine activity within Croatian clinical laboratories.

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