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An internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions
BACKGROUND: Literature exists regarding the perioperative role of internists. Internists rely on this literature assuming it meets the needs of surgeons without actually knowing their perspective. We sought to understand why surgeons ask for preoperative consultations and their view on the internist...
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Formato: | Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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BioMed Central
2008
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2259301/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18208614 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-9-4 |
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author | PausJenssen, Lisa Ward, Heather A Card, Sharon E |
author_facet | PausJenssen, Lisa Ward, Heather A Card, Sharon E |
author_sort | PausJenssen, Lisa |
collection | PubMed |
description | BACKGROUND: Literature exists regarding the perioperative role of internists. Internists rely on this literature assuming it meets the needs of surgeons without actually knowing their perspective. We sought to understand why surgeons ask for preoperative consultations and their view on the internist's role in perioperative medicine. METHODS: Survey of surgeons in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada regarding an internist's potential role in perioperative care. RESULTS: Fifty-nine percent responded. The majority request a preoperative consultation for a difficult case (83%) or specific problem (81%). While almost half feel that a preoperative consultation is to "clear" a patient for surgery, 33% disagree with this statement. The majority believe the internist should discuss risk with the patient. Aspects of the preoperative consultation deemed most important are cardiac medication optimization (93%), cardiac risk stratification (83%), addition of β-blockers (76%), and diabetes management (74%). CONCLUSION: Surgeons perceive the most important roles for the internist as cardiac risk stratification and medication management. Areas of controversy identified amongst the surgeons included who should inform the patient of their operative risk, and whether the internist should follow the patient daily postoperatively. Unclear expectations have the potential to impact on patient safety and informed consent unless acknowledged and acted on by all. We recommend that internists performing perioperative consults communicate directly with the consulting physician to ensure that all parties are in accordance as to each others duties. We also recommend that the teaching of perioperative consults emphasizes the interdisciplinary communication needed to ensure that patient needs are not neglected when one specialty assumes the other will perform a function. |
format | Text |
id | pubmed-2259301 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2008 |
publisher | BioMed Central |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-22593012008-03-04 An internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions PausJenssen, Lisa Ward, Heather A Card, Sharon E BMC Fam Pract Research Article BACKGROUND: Literature exists regarding the perioperative role of internists. Internists rely on this literature assuming it meets the needs of surgeons without actually knowing their perspective. We sought to understand why surgeons ask for preoperative consultations and their view on the internist's role in perioperative medicine. METHODS: Survey of surgeons in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada regarding an internist's potential role in perioperative care. RESULTS: Fifty-nine percent responded. The majority request a preoperative consultation for a difficult case (83%) or specific problem (81%). While almost half feel that a preoperative consultation is to "clear" a patient for surgery, 33% disagree with this statement. The majority believe the internist should discuss risk with the patient. Aspects of the preoperative consultation deemed most important are cardiac medication optimization (93%), cardiac risk stratification (83%), addition of β-blockers (76%), and diabetes management (74%). CONCLUSION: Surgeons perceive the most important roles for the internist as cardiac risk stratification and medication management. Areas of controversy identified amongst the surgeons included who should inform the patient of their operative risk, and whether the internist should follow the patient daily postoperatively. Unclear expectations have the potential to impact on patient safety and informed consent unless acknowledged and acted on by all. We recommend that internists performing perioperative consults communicate directly with the consulting physician to ensure that all parties are in accordance as to each others duties. We also recommend that the teaching of perioperative consults emphasizes the interdisciplinary communication needed to ensure that patient needs are not neglected when one specialty assumes the other will perform a function. BioMed Central 2008-01-21 /pmc/articles/PMC2259301/ /pubmed/18208614 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-9-4 Text en Copyright © 2008 PausJenssen et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0) ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Research Article PausJenssen, Lisa Ward, Heather A Card, Sharon E An internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions |
title | An internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions |
title_full | An internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions |
title_fullStr | An internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions |
title_full_unstemmed | An internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions |
title_short | An internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions |
title_sort | internist's role in perioperative medicine: a survey of surgeons' opinions |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2259301/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18208614 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-9-4 |
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