Pre-Ops

Before anyone has surgery, they are always "pre-oped". Usually the nurses in Pre-Admission Testing or some other department equivilent. This is basicly a short interview to evaluate the persons health and determine a plan for the best anesthesia.

When a patient is already in the hospital, the anesthesiologists go to the patient and do it themselves... as you can imagine this sometimes leads to interesting encounters.

The other night DrWho went in to Pre-Op an older lady for heart surgery. The surgery was going to require by-pass and the woman was justifiably nervous about it.

When asked if she had any questions about the procedure, the woman looked up and said, "Are you really going to stop my heart?"

"Yes ma'am. The procedure requires us to stop your heart for while."

The woman paused... and looked very disconserted... all Julie could think to say was..

"But we re-start it!"