Doctors gaining surgical consent from patients for procedures in the COVID-19 era need to consider additional pandemic-related factors, US surgeons say.

The risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 is among five key items that should be part of informed consent for elective procedures, according to the report in the Annals of Surgery.

Dr Jeffrey Matthews of the University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences and colleagues describe how the surgeons’ institution introduced changes regarding surgical consent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Under their new “enhanced surgical consent” policy, discussions must occur before the patient arrives at hospital and must be done with the responsible surgeon, not with a resident or admin staff.