Many of my patients ask a variety of questions about surgery and it is important to answer each as carefully as possible in order to reduce the anxiety leading into the operative procedure.
Let’s start at the beginning. Your primary care physician has examined you and determined that you have a problem. Your primary care physician refers you to a specialist who confirms the problem and you are scheduled for the surgical procedure to correct it.
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Prior to your surgery, there is a preparation you must go through. This preparation consists of your laboratory work; laboratory work is extremely important because if there’s any significant problem, information about that problem is critical to the procedure. Therefore you’ll be asked for tests such as:
- A blood count
- A urinalysis (analysis of the urine), and
- Checking your electrolytes.
If you are over 50 years old, we’ll ask for:
- An EKG (a heart tracing)
- A chest x-ray
Lastly, if you are a female and you’re menstruating, we’ll ask for a pregnancy test.
None of these are going to cancel your operative procedure, but this is a case where information is critical for the preparation going into the operative procedure. After we’ve determined and actually scheduled you for your time, we will ask you to do several things.
First of all, it’s important that prior to your procedure you spend a certain number of hours without oral intake (without eating). So we’ll frequently ask you to stop eating after midnight. It’s important that your stomach is empty prior to your surgical procedure because we certainly don’t want you to vomit during the procedure because it creates problems.
When you arrive at the hospital, we will ask you to arrive two hours prior to your procedure. The reason for this is that there’s a lot of paperwork to be brought together which is informative to the anesthesiologist and to the surgeon and surgical technologists. You will then be brought into the surgical suite. At that time the anesthesiologist will speak to you and want to know about allergies, as well as, previous experiences with anesthesia. The anesthesiologist may medicate you to reduce some of the anxiety that you have going into surgery.
Prior to the surgical procedure, we will be marking and identifying the site of the surgical procedure on your body. Do not be alarmed. The site is marked by the surgeon. Subsequently in the operative suite before you go to sleep everyone must agree to what is going to be done — the anesthesiologist, the surgeon, the surgical nurse and the surgical technician.
When reviewing your new prescription, inform the pharmacist about the purpose for which the doctor gave you the prescription and the directions to take it. This helps the pharmacist double check that the prescription is appropriate. Also inform the pharmacist of your known drug allergies to ensure they check for cross sensitivity. Make sure your pharmacist is aware of any over-the-counter medications or herbal supplements that you are taking to ensure they check for potential drug interactions. Lastly, fill all your prescriptions within the same pharmacy chain so that your medication profile is accurate and up-to-date. Otherwise, you run the risk of potential drug-drug interactions missed through the computer database.
After we have all identified the procedure and identified the site you will then be put to sleep. Going to sleep is a very rapid process. The next thing you will know is that you will be in the recovery room. • About Dr. Murray
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