Exam 6: Rights to Rehabilitation and Medical Care

In __________, the Seventh Circuit recognized implicitly that consent may not always be genuine when prisoners participate in rehabilitation programs.

For each of the scenarios below, use the case law presented in this chapter to discuss whether the courts would find a violation. ● A doctor did not inform a prisoner of two broken pins in their hip that might require surgery. ● A dentist subjected a prisoner to dental work without anesthesia because delaying the treatment would cause more pain. ● A prisoner is being treated for chronic rhinitis, and requests to be transferred to a prison facility in a dry area that will help the treatment of his illness, but the prison facility denies the prisoner's request.

Prisoners must have all the necessary information to make an informed decision regarding their medical treatment under the Fourteenth Amendment.

The reality is that no "voluntary" program in prison is truly free from coercion.

In O'Connor v. Donaldson, the Supreme Court refused to decide whether mental patients have a constitutional right to treatment.

The highest level that transsexual and transgender cases have reached is the U.S. Courts of Appeals.

The Supreme Court has not yet rendered a decision clarifying the law in the area of when a complaint alleging inadequate medical treatment is sufficient to state a cause of action for deprivation of a federal right.