[Informed consent of the surgical patient]

The article analyses the consequences of the paradigm shift in the surgical practice in the last fifty years. The earlier, paternalistic physician-patient relationship has been replaced by an equal one, which is based on informing the patient and involving him or her in the treatment decisions. This shift did not happen uniformly in various medical subspecialties. In this respect, surgery is more conservative than general medicine. The article analyses the most frequent problems of informing patients, and examines the major elements of information, together with their technical conditions in surgery. It reflects on specifics of surgical information disclosure and conditions of refusing medical interventions.