Preparation for Surgery

Posted on March 7, 2008
Filed Under Surgery |

What are the steps prior to surgical intervention?

Before any operation, whether inpatient or outpatient, it is necessary that both the physician and the patient prepare for the intervention to be carried out:

Medical history

The surgeon must perform a query on the patient’s medical history, asking about the main illness data, general health status and other diseases that can accompany medical and surgical history, allergies to drugs and medication today. Then record the results of the physical examination of the patient.

Preoperative studies

Depending on the type of intervention and the patient will need some studies before the intervention. In general tend to make blood tests, coagulation, electrocardiogram and chest radiograph.

Information

The surgeon must inform the patient in a clear and easy on the diagnosis, what the intervention, what are the most frequent complications, risks personalized about possible sequels and whether other treatment options.

Consent

As a final step, the patient signs a document which recorded his satisfaction with the information received, and you consent to the surgery is performed as specified.

What do they need to know the surgeon and the anesthesiologist?

* If the patient is allergic to any medicine.

* If the patient is taking any medication at the moment (especially anticoagulants or antiplatelet and corticosteroids in the blood).

* If the patient smokes or has smoked, and if the lung is damaged by the snuff (bronchitis or emphysema).

* If the patient has or has had high blood pressure.

* If the patient has or has had high blood sugar.

* If the patient has or has had bronchial asthma.

* If the patient has had chest pain or angina pectoris, myocardial infarction or prior.

* If the patient has previously been anesthetized, and the problems that might arise.

* If the patient has surgery before, and what kind of intervention.

* If the patient accepts the transfusion of blood or derivatives if necessary.

What is anesthesia?

The anesthesiologist will have already discussed with the patient the kind of anesthesia is expected to use in his speech. Depending on each patient and may be:

* Local Anesthesia: Anesthesia is the only area where you make the incision

* Regional anesthesia: epidural or spinal, anesthesia is the lower half of the body, approximately from the waist down.

* General anesthesia: the patient is completely asleep, and it is often necessary to keep breathing through endotracheal intubation and mechanical ventilation.

How long will be in the hospital?

Surgery may be, according to the time required to spend at the health center:

Ambulatory surgery

The patient spends the first hours after surgery in the hospital until they are discharged to home, once back in the day of surgery. Ever more interventions are performed on an outpatient surgery (inguinal hernia, hemorrhoids, breast nodules, cataracts, etc.).

Inpatient surgery

The patient enters the hospital and spends at least one night. It may be short-stay surgery (income of 24-48 hours). This is a good alternative when it is not possible to outpatient surgery for the patient or organizational reasons.

What to do with the usual medication?

Normally, the anesthesiologist will see the patient several days before the procedure, and advise you on medication that can be taken in the days before surgery. In general, you can follow up with the usual medication the day of the intervention, with several important exceptions:

* Oral anticoagulants (Sintrom) should be suspended 3-4 days before surgery. When it is necessary to continue anticoagulation with heparin should be administered to the patient until the time of intervention.

* Antiaggregant of platelets: as acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin, Adir, Tromalyt, etc…) And others (Persantín, Tiklid, etc.)… It must stop 7-10 days before surgery.

What should you bring to the hospital?

The patient admitted the previous evening or the day of intervention, if it does not require any special preparation. You must bring:

* History and clinical reports of previous episodes, X-rays

* Medication usual

* Names, addresses and phone numbers of close relatives

* It is generally provided pajamas, but it should lead gown and slippers.

* Grooming tools.

How is the preparation in the hours prior to surgery?

* Usually provide sedative medication the night before to facilitate the rest.

* The patient should shower and shave the surgical site will be.

* Depending on the type of intervention, the patient will receive antibiotics to prevent infections, and medication to prevent the formation of thrombi in the veins and to prevent gastritis and stomach bleeding.

Cosmetic Surgery

It is socially acceptable to take a careful skin, smooth and without imperfections is an attribute of physical attractiveness. However, we often hard to accept that as we age, maintaining the skin healthy, radiant and luminous becomes increasingly difficult. The face is the “presentation card” of people and we care so much interest, but it is the body area exposed and thus more vulnerable to the harmful rays of the sun.

The search for a perfect body and eternal youth by many people has led to a rapid development of aesthetic and cosmetic surgery in recent years throughout the world. It is said, not without sarcasm, that in countries like Brazil, where other developed areas with very poor, there are many more cosmetic surgery clinics to basic health centers. In many other countries, the high demand for cosmetic surgery procedures for the citizens has also led to an extraordinary proliferation of these clinics or centers which offer technical and surgical care for a thousand and one problems of beauty and health.

In this article we will review very briefly the most popular techniques and procedures than those described in previous articles.

It is important to know that most of the techniques we describe like many other surgical procedures involving or involve certain risks and uncertainties such as infections, bleeding or bleeding, problems with blood clotting and adverse reactions to anesthesia. It is therefore essential to choose a plastic surgeon or a specialist in the field are highly qualified and accredited center or clinic that provides basic guarantees of hygiene and equipment to reduce or avoid these risks and complications.

Have been described more than thirty procedures and techniques for treatment of cosmetic and aesthetic problems that this article will analyze the most important and frequently requested. Treatments related to breast and facial aesthetic surgery, it is obvious in this article because they are treated separately in other articles.

Abdominal Reduction

Basically it is a procedure different from liposuction, which involves the breaking or flattening of the abdomen by removing fat from the tummy and strengthening the skin and muscles of the abdominal wall. Is usually done under general or local anesthesia with sedation, no longer than 2-3 hours and allows the return to ordinary activities of the patient over a period of 2-4 weeks.

“Peeling” or “peeled”

The peeling or “peeling” chemical in the skin of the face is a chemical process in which substances are used as phenol or trichloroacetic acid in order to restore the skin, removing wrinkles and blemishes or lesions or pigmented patches of skin caused by sun exposure through a mask that produces a facial peel, that is, an irritation of the more superficial layers of the skin with subsequent desquamation. This technique works best on thin, smooth skin with superficial wrinkles. Take 1 to 2 hours and requires no anesthesia. Produces or causes little local discomfort, such as skin redness or a feeling of warmth, which disappear within a few days.

Local injections of fat or collagen

These injections are administered on the skin of the face, the lips, cheekbones, chin, or, ultimately, the body area you wish to modify. It is a very simple procedure that usually requires no anesthesia, short and only involves the risk of an allergic reaction to collagen (usually a test prior to injection of the substance to see whether or not there is an allergy).

Dermabrasion or skin abrasion

It consists of a mechanical scraping of the surface layers of the skin through a small high-speed rotary wheel. Often this technique is used to smooth the skin surface irregularities, including acne and other small facial scars, marks or fine wrinkles, especially around the mouth.

Surgery of the ear and eyelid

Techniques exist to treat the ears separate or “soplillo (otoplasty), on the head or techniques to reduce the size of large ears. Usually done in children with certain complex.

Other techniques, such as blepharoplasty, correct the fall of the upper eyelid and remove fat pockets of the lower eyelid.

Facial Implants

Basically pursue change the basic shape and balance of the face, using small facial implants to build a retracted chin, highlight cheekbones or jaw line redraw.

Finally, many other techniques are used to correct the problems in the front, remove facial wrinkles and scars, or laser hair by restoring hair grafts in the bald areas, not covered more extensively in this article.

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