The Patient
Unit 4: Preoperative Assessment & Management
A thorough preoperative workup of the patient will help in assessing the patient’s suitability for anaesthesia and surgery by detecting any pre-existing condition or inapparent condition, which may influence the outcome of the intended procedure.
It also allows for the comparison of the patient’s condition both prior to, and following surgery.
Preoperative evaluation of the patient to assess the overall state of health, presence of concurrent disease and use of medications can also significantly affect the risk of infection.
A proper preoperative assessment generally involves thorough history taking, a physical examination and the use of an appropriate laboratory workup. This will then allow the surgeon to establish a surgical plan and consider the prognosis for a successful outcome.
History taking, physical examination and case recording are the foundations of making a diagnosis.
We need to know how to collect and organize information about a problem, how to plan further diagnostic steps and how to record the information in a form useful to ourselves and others in the future.
Topics
- History
- Physical Examination
- Diagnostic Techniques
- Collecting and Organising Information
- Surgical Planning