Anesthesia Counseling, Consent, & Professionalism

The anesthesia consent form has become a standard before surgery. However, verbal aspects of anesthesia consent and of the value of the preoperative anesthesia discussion has not been addressed. This study will use preoperative discussions and postoperative patient questionnaires to examine the degree of awareness that the patients and the patients families have regarding what general anesthesia is, the responsibilities of the anesthesiologist, and the specifics of what the participants are agreeing to by signing the consent form.