Baily & Love 21: Preoperative Care Including the High-Risk Surgical Patient

Surgery begins long before the first incision. This episode explores preoperative assessment as a critical intervention in its own right — particularly for patients with significant comorbidity, frailty, or physiological vulnerability.We examine risk stratification, optimisation of chronic disease, medication management, and the role of prehabilitation. The episode discusses cardiovascular, respiratory, renal, and metabolic assessment, alongside shared decision-making and consent in high-risk scenarios.Rather than treating preoperative care as administrative, this chapter reframes it as anticipatory medicine — identifying reversible risk, clarifying goals of care, and ensuring patients enter surgery as prepared as possible, physically and psychologically. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit drmanaankarray.substack.com/subscribe