The Legislature finds that, through the common law, the courts of the State of South Dakota have imposed a standard of practice in the health care profession that, except in exceptional circumstances, requires physicians and other health care practitioners to provide patients with such facts about the nature of any proposed course of treatment, the risks of the proposed course of treatment, the alternatives to the proposed course, including any risks that would be applicable to any alternatives, as a reasonable patient would consider significant to the decision of whether to undergo the proposed course of treatment.

Source: SL 2005, ch 186, § 5.