Self assessment exercises--legal and ethical dilemmas in medicine.

3. You attend to a young male patient who has sustained a head injury during an alleged assault. He is self-ventilating and haemodynamically stable, but is agitated with a reduced Glasgow coma score, and will require intubation prior to CT scan of his head. His mother is in the relatives’ room waiting for a progress update. The nurse helping you suggests you could get consent from his mother before performing rapid sequence induction and intubation.