Obtaining private information about you, providing medical opinions, and ultimately sharing your medical information with other co-practitioners requires your consent.

Normally consent for anything we do in life is a natural and innocent process. Consent usually does not require formality, and is usually assumed when one submits willingly to any action or activity.

In medicine (and also dentistry) consent is a legal process, and for which there are rules and procedures. For some the process of consent may appear onerous or even sinister, and may provide the patient with a sense of indefensible exposure to the potential of harmful intent.

At Ocean Surgical, we treat consent as a process which aims to maximally inform patients, and to provide protection from medical misadventure. Whilst it may superficially appear that the provision of written consent may be "signing your life away", this is not the actual intention of providing medical consent.

By signing any consent form, you are in effect stating that your verbal treatment intentions are as they are written. In medicine such provision of consent is important, and is a rate limiting process... meaning any follow-on procedure cannot occur without your providing an informed written consent to submit to a medical procedure or process.

When you first present to Ocean Surgical for a consultation, we will be providing you several documents, each of which you must read carefully, and properly complete.

The first is a consent to being examined, and to have personal and medical information taken about you.

The second document is a copy of the Practice Privacy Policy. In it is a statement designed to help you understand the nature of your medical privacy rights, especially in regards the keeping of your medical records, and the legal obligations of the practice to keep these records complete and unadulterated on your behalf. This document especially informs you on how your health information may be used outside of the practice (for instance in providing letters to your referring doctor after your consultation).

The third document is a medical questionnaire. Remember you are being treated by a medical doctor (as well as a dental doctor), and many questions regarding your medical health may not seem obviously relevent to openly disclose. It is important that you understand and detail all of your medical problems, and any medications that you may be taking in order that our surgeons can properly co-ordinate care for you. Failure to reveal all your medical conditions can be dangerous, and can adversely affect proposed treatment.

The fourth document is a general questionnaire, and in essence seeks to establish your name, address, medicare and health-insurance details and contacts of next of-kin. We appreciate the confidentiality of such information, and which is described in terms of our Practice Privacy Policy.

We look forward to meeting you at Ocean Surgical, and hope that the experience of your consultation (and hopefully eventual treatment) is an enjoyable one.