Patient rights

I find this story especially poignant considering the past 72 hours I spent under the care of the American (private) hospital system and the constant struggle to determine the rights of consent which bestow on me the right to refuse particular treatment or invasive tests I preferred not to undergo. It wasn't so much the questionable necessity of the tests but the shear ludicrous nature of deciding what would be 'needed' or rather required based purely on a textbook understanding of head 'trauma' and the subsequent cascading secondary injuries that could potentially occur (or be prevented). I endured these tests which yielded no possibility of secondary injury but I wonder if I had put up more resistance how the hospital might have responded? It seems the involuntary process by which we become emergency trauma patients should not negate our right to consent or refuse, no? Are we trapped within a doctor's obligation to prevent further mortal injury, no matter how remote, and our own desires to not participate?