What does "Informed Consent" mean?

 

   Informed consent means you are fully informed of the effects of a procedure and consent to go ahead with it.

 

   Properly documenting this consent is important to doctors and surgeons because of liability issues if something goes wrong with hormone treatment or GRS surgery.

 

  WPATH (World Professional Association for Transgender Health), publishes guidelines for documenting informed consent, https://www.wpath.org/publications/soc

 

   There are a lot of consequences to hormone treatment and GRS surgery, physical, psychological, social, economic, et al.  WPATH recommends seeing a mental health professional to go though all of these consequences and document your informed consent.

 

   For a small percentage of patients who are further along in their transition, some doctors are willing to waive the third party evaluation and determine informed consent themselves.  These doctors are sometimes referred to as "informed consent doctors".  Since these doctors do not use this option with all patients, TGMI does not identify which doctors may do this in our TransPages.

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