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Perioperative Psychiatry pp 15–26Cite as

Consenting to Surgery: Assessing the Patient’s Capacity to Make Decisions About Own Medical Care

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Abstract

Informed consent is the cornerstone of the therapeutic relationship between physician and patient. However, the peri-surgical setting poses several challenges to implementing an effective informed consent process. This clinically oriented chapter provides an overview of the informed consent process in surgical care including making recommendations for enhancing patient comprehension, identifying issues while assessing capacity, and enumerating next steps to take if patients are found to be incapacitated. The chapter will also identify several special issues relating to mental and physical illness that surgical teams may encounter.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Law and Psychiatry Division, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, CT, USA

    Maya Prabhu

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  1. Maya Prabhu
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Correspondence to Maya Prabhu .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, New Haven, CT, USA

    Paula C. Zimbrean

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA

    Mark A. Oldham

  3. Department of Psychiatry, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, NY, USA

    Hochang Benjamin Lee

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Prabhu, M. (2019). Consenting to Surgery: Assessing the Patient’s Capacity to Make Decisions About Own Medical Care. In: Zimbrean, P., Oldham, M., Lee, H. (eds) Perioperative Psychiatry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99774-2_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-99774-2_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-99774-2

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