[INFORMED CONSENT FOR SURGERY: WHAT'S REALLY GOING ON THERE?]

Introduction: The process of "informed consent" is currently being evaluated by the Ministry of Health, with the intent to recommend steps to improve patients' and doctors' satisfaction. Following the committee meetings, we decided to initiate an evaluation of the patient's perceptions regarding technical and logistic aspects of the process.
Aims: To learn about patients' perceptions on the informed consent process, by evaluating different aspects and variables.
Methods: One hundred patients who underwent an "informed consent" process, followed by general surgery, were interviewed using a formulated call-script. All the patients had surgery at Ramat Hayal Hospital during January 2020.
Results: All the interviewed patients reported that their surgeon was the one who participated in the informed consent process. The majority of the patients (70%) reported that the meeting lasted between 10-20 minutes. Only 35% of the patients reported that the surgeon used auxiliary materials during the meeting. Almost all patients (96-99%) noted that the explanations delineated by the surgeon during their meeting were clear, satisfactory, and congruent with their real experiences of their surgery.
Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, we confirm that the informed consent process for patients having surgery at the Ramat Hayal Hospital, is adequate and follows the recommendations of the law. Analyzing our data by the funding agent did not disclose meaningful differences except regarding the use of auxiliary materials. This issue will be examined in a future study.
Discussion: These study results show a high compliance with the informed consent process in accordance with the law and MOH regulations.