Dear patient:
You are about to undergo a surgical procedure that requires compliance with a variety of requirements in order to ensure the most successful outcome of the surgery. One of the most important requirements is to adequately assess your current state of health by means of an in-depth preoperative clinical assessment.
PREOPERATIVE ASSESSMENT
The success of any surgical procedure depends not only on the surgical therapeutics used but also on the body responding adequately to the surgical aggression and to the anaesthetic technique used. Consequently, it is clear that determining the patient´s health status prior to the operation is the most effective way to achieve that objective.
Information on the patient´s condition is acquired by means of a rigorous medical examination that includes, amongst others, the following measures:
- Clinical history: A set of questions aimed at retrieving information on the general health condition of the patients, past medical or surgery history, diseases, prior surgery, the existence of allergies and/or abnormal reactions to drugs or anaesthetic techniques, the presence of current conditions/diseases (diabetes, asthma, etc.), toxic habits (smoking, alcohol, etc.) and any current medication the patient may be taking prior to surgery.
If you or someone from your family has previously had an abnormal reaction and/or an important complication attributable to an anaesthetic procedure, please inform your surgeon and the anaesthesiologist who is performing the preoperative assessment of the details.
