Surgical Procedures Overview

Abstract

The following sections describe typical, uncomplicated postoperative courses for a variety of surgeries. The details are presented from a medical, rather than a surgical, point of view. It may have been years since an internist has seen a postoperative surgical patient—therefore, our goal is to give the internist a general sense of the typical postoperative course and to highlight surgical issues that may impact other medical diagnoses and treatments. Every postoperative course is unique, however, and there is no substitute for communicating with an individual patient’s surgical team.