In addition to the responsibilities of your plastic surgeon, anesthesiologist, and the nursing staff of a hospital or surgery center, surgery involves certain obligations on the part of the patient to ensure a safe and uncomplicated experience. The following is a list of the four most common issues that I have encountered over the years in plastic surgery practice that have resulted in the need for someone’s surgery being cancelled on their scheduled day of surgery.
SHOWING UP LATE
While it can happen that someone gets lost on the way to their surgery or gets up late on the morning of their surgery, the usual cause of surgical lateness is a misunderstanding of their surgery time and the needed time of arrival. Surgery time is when your operation is scheduled to begin but a sufficient amount of time is needed to get you ready for your operation beforehand. Generally, one to one and half hours is needed to get you ready so you should arrive at the facility with that much time beforehand. Arriving 15 minutes before your surgery is scheduled will likely get your actual surgery time pushed back (so the next operation can be done before you) or you may have to re-schedule for another day.
NOTHING TO EAT OR DRINK EIGHT (8) HOURS PRIOR TO SURGERY
This is an inviolate preoperative rule of surgery that, if misunderstood, may have life-threatening consequences. Food or liquids in the stomach may be vomited while being put to sleep, entering the lungs and causing a potential life-threatening pneumonia. For this reason, surgery is never performed without an empty stomach even if it is only a conscious sedation.
YOU WILL NEED TO BE TAKEN HOME BY SOMEONE AFTER SURGERY
Unless you are having a procedure under local anesthetic injections, the use of IV medication for sedation or general anesthesia requires that someone be available to take you home after surgery. It is simply not safe for you to drive home after an anesthetic. Taking a taxi home is also not permitted. The medical knowledge of most taxi drivers is probably very limited.
IF YOU ARE FROM OUT OF TOWN AND STAYING IN A HOTEL, SOMEONE WILL NEED TO STAY WITH YOU THE NIGHT AFTER SURGERY
It is not medically advisable to have you alone in a hotel room after any surgical procedure that required a general anesthetic. If you do not have someone, arrangements will need to be done to have you stay overnite in the surgery center or for a caretaker to stay with you in the hotel. These arrangements will need to be made in advance.
Dr. Barry Eppley
Indianapolis, Indiana