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Annals of The Royal College of Surgeons of England logoLink to Annals of The Royal College of Surgeons of England
. 1993 Jan;75(1):62–65.

Informed consent: a case for more education of the surgical team.

B Soin 1, W A Smellie 1, H J Thomson 1
PMCID: PMC2497732  PMID: 8422148

Abstract

A questionnaire was given to 37 members of staff of the Department of Surgery, Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, in order to determine whether their knowledge was adequate to give accurate information to patients regarding operations and thus to obtain properly informed consent for that operation. Each participant was asked to estimate the 24-h and 30-day mortality for five common elective operations. A wide range of answers was given for operations by all groups. Estimates of 24-h mortality after unilateral inguinal herniorrhaphy differed between staff grades by a factor of 3, but estimates of 24-h mortality after thyroidectomy differed by a factor of 100 between consultant surgeons and staff nurses. Our findings suggest that some members of the surgical team have insufficient knowledge about common operations to obtain properly informed consent from patients.

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Selected References

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