Surgery

• Pre-Operative Information
• Post-Operative Information

A Word About Anesthesia:

This section is devoted to help you and your family better understand what modern anesthesia is, so that you may help make well-informed decisions about your care. As physician specialists, our main goal is to provide you with the best medical care possible during your surgery as well as safe relief from pain.

Today's new safe, short acting anesthetic medications and sophisticated monitoring devices enable anesthesiologists to provide their patients with the most up to date and best medical care possible on a daily basis. As a result, an increasing number of
surgical procedures are performed safely on an outpatient basis. This means that patients may come to the hospital, have surgery and go home, all on the same day. If you are a same day surgical patient, you now may safely undergo one of many, elective surgical procedures without staying overnight in the hospital away from your family and friends. You may continue your recuperation the same day in the comfort of your own home and often avoid costs which insurance might not cover. Same day surgery usually is elective and can range in duration from a few minutes to a few hours. It is frequently performed in the ambulatory surgical center. The anesthetic techniques that are used today enable you to continue your recovery safely at home. These techniques may be applied to all forms of anesthesia including: local anesthesia with intravenous sedation, regional nerve blocks, and general anesthesia where you are unconscious during surgery.

After surgery, you will be taken to the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU), commonly called the recovery room, and closely watched for any immediate postoperative problems. When you meet the discharge criteria which is based on your personal medical condition, the type of surgery and the criteria of the ambulatory surgical center you will be released to go home with a reliable friend or family member. It is extremely important that you arrange for a responsible adult to take you home from the ambulatory surgical center because your coordination and various reflexes may be impaired for at least 24 hours making normal activities, such as driving, difficult.

There are three main categories of anesthesia: general, regional and local. Each has many forms and uses. In general anesthesia, you are unconscious and have no awareness or other sensations. There are a number of general anesthetic drugs. Some are gases or vapors inhaled through a breathing mask or tube and others are medications introduced through a vein. During anesthesia, you are carefully monitored, controlled and treated by your anesthesiologist, who uses sophisticated state of the art equipment to track all your major bodily functions. A breathing tube may be inserted through your mouth and frequently into the windpipe to maintain proper breathing during this period. The length and level of anesthesia is calculated and constantly adjusted with great precision. At the conclusion of surgery, your anesthesiologist will reverse the process and you will regain awareness in the recovery room.

In regional anesthesia, your anesthesiologist makes an injection near a cluster of nerves to numb the area of your body that requires surgery. You may remain awake, or you may be given a sedative. You do not see or feel the actual surgery take place. There are several kinds of regional anesthesia. Two of the most frequently used are spinal anesthesia and epidural anesthesia, which are produced by injections made with great exactness in the appropriate areas of the back.

In local anesthesia, the anesthetic drug is usually injected into the tissue to numb just the specific location of your body requiring minor surgery, for example, on the hand or foot.

For most procedures it is necessary for you to have an empty stomach so that the chances of regurgitating any undigested food or liquids is greatly reduced. Some anesthetics suspend your normal reflexes so that your body's automatic defenses may not be working. For example, your lungs normally are protected from objects, such as undigested food, from entering them. However, this natural protection does not occur while you are anesthetized. So for your safety you may be told to fast (no food or liquids) before surgery. Your doctor will tell you specifically whether you can or cannot eat and drink and for how long. In addition, the anesthesiologist may instruct you to take certain medications with a little water during your fasting time. For your own safety, it is very important that you follow these instructions carefully about fasting and medications; if not it may be necessary to postpone surgery.

When you talk with your anesthesiologist, please ask about any questions or concerns you have. We believe that the best anesthesia care for you will result from you being a cooperative, confident and well-informed patient.