Page 2 | Anaesthetist appointment pre-operation

ElTortilla · 2024-08-14T18:37:26+00:00

I have surgery planned but don't have a date yet. I'm going away and I'm anxious it might clash when I get my surgery date through. I do have an appointment pre op with the anaesthetist. Does anyone know how long after the anaesthetist appointment surgery usually is? Thank you.

anaesthetists do quite a lot more than 'just' putting people to sleep. We don't often see people who are relatively straightforward before the day of surgery in the UK, but we do run clinics for people who have complex medical problems/ are having complex surgery/ have particular features that might make an anaesthetic more complex. An anaesthetics isn't just putting people to sleep and waking them up, it's managing cardiac /respiratory /renal /endocrine /cerebral /other physiology, working out which combination of pretty funky drugs will be safest, working out what challenges the operation will cause to a patient's normal physiology and having plan A-Z to manage all of that. We can help with making sure someone is medically as well as possible before a major operation and can help patients who have complex medical issues decide whether proceeding with an operation is actually the right thing for them and make sure they understand what particular features might cause problems (or perhaps can reassure them/ the surgeon that a perceived problem actually isn't that big an issue). Increasingly these days patients with serious medical problems are presenting for major surgery, whereas in the past that just wouldn't have been possible, and that can take up a lot of resources and come with risks that need proper multi-disciplinary input to keep them safe. We can plan what mode of anaesthetic (general/local/sedation/spinal/other) is right for a particular patient and their operation so it's not a huge surprise on the day; where patients have been identified as being likely to pose challenges to an anaesthetist (perhaps because they might be difficult to intubate or might be difficult to get a spinal into etc) we can identify whether special kit/expertise is needed in advance. We can also help with planning care post-operatively. Where a patient has modifiable lifestyle problems (like smoking/obesity/alcohol excess etc) we can advise them of the implications that might have and whether changing any of those things would improve their chances of doing well. We can help with list planning - if we know in advance that a particular patient's anaesthetic is likely to take ages then we can advise the surgeon (or more likely the managers who book the lists but have no clinical background) to book the list sensibly so we're not likely to cancel people later on in the day. Many people don't need to see an anaesthetist in clinic (and there aren't enough of us to see everyone before the day either), but if someone's suggesting a face-to-face appointment with an anaesthetist ahead of the date/before booking a date it's usually worth taking notice of that and going even if it's just for reassurance.