What is Perioperative Medicine
Perioperative management is when a physician assists your surgeon in managing your medical problems and assessing if you are fit for surgery. This includes optimising and stabilising your medical problems to minimise their effect on your operation. This assessment is separate to your anaesthetic assessment in most cases. The perioperative physician will also care for you after the operation to manage your medical conditions and help you recover. The physician providing perioperative care in the private hospital is often a Geriatrician or General physician.
The sorts of medical problems that need optimisation before an operation are many and varied, and might include heart problems such as angina, valve disease and heart failure as well as people with emphysema or other lung diseases, people with rheumatic and autoimmune conditions like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, people with diabetes, high blood pressure, kidney disease and anaemia, and people who have problems like dementia, mental health problems like anxiety and depression, and drug or alcohol dependency.