Is an orthopaedic surgeon required to inform a patient of a less serious alternative procedure which may not have the potential to treat scoliosis?

In Bucknam v. Kostuik, supra, an orthopaedic surgeon performed surgery on a woman with scoliosis. She was not informed of a possible procedure which was less serious because, in the treating physician’s opinion, it would not have the potential of alleviating the patient’s primary concern which was to straighten the curve in her spine. The trial judge did not decide the issue of whether the doctor should have informed the patient of the other procedure, but observed at p. 114 that: It may well be imposing an unreasonable standard on an orthopaedic surgeon, who reasonably believes that to treat the patient’s scoliosis is a necessity and that a simple fusion at the area of the proven ruptured disc is not the answer to the plaintiff’s problem, to require him to inform the patients of that option, an option that, by definition, in his or her mind is entirely unreasonable.