No "mainstream" operation today would exist without pioneering operations involving patients willing to take the risk. Not modern wonders like heart surgery and organs transplants and not everyday operations like cesearean sections and skin grafts.

No lifesaving drugs would exist, from penicillin to polio vaccines to modern anti-inflammatories and insulin treatments.

No medical treatment today is without risk. Not a single one.

There's not a medical procedure, not a drug, not an ancient herbal remedy that didn't require someone, at some point, taking a deep breath and choosing the risk. If you want medical treatment of any sort, it comes with a degree of risk. Since the patients are the ones at risk, isn't it far, far better that THEY decide how much risk they are and are not willing to accept?

Shamefully, medical history includes cases where doctors experimented on unwilling or ignorant patients (the Nazis, the Tuskeegee Airmen, etc.) Do you care to place your health decisions completely in the hands of someone else, or do you wish to make your own choices? Because you can't have it both ways. You can't blame the doctors for failure while demanding choices of your own.

I am humbly thankful that I have never had to make such an agonizing choice.