A rare but serious risk (thromboembolic events from tranexamic acid, less than 1 in 1,000) may engage the duty to warn under Rogers v Whitaker even where professional practice does not require such a warning, though the Court did not finally resolve this. Patient anxiety about treatment generally does not, without more, establish that the practitioner should have been aware the particular patient would attach significance to a rare risk. Hindsight evidence of what a patient would have done if warned remains of little weight where the answers are exaggerated and self-serving. The question of whether the shifting evidentiary onus analysis from Chappel v Hart survives ss 51 and 52 of the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic) remains open.
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