Anesthesia

Before surgery, a review by our anesthetist is necessary. Generally we coincide this review with the day of the 2nd visit to simplify the procedure. To this appointment you must bring:

• Complete analysis, with blood count, biochemistry and coagulation study.
• Electrocardiogram.
• Chest x-ray if applicable (there are cases in which it is not necessary, in those cases it will be indicated during the first visit).

This medical review is essential to determine if you are suitable for surgery and to decide the most appropriate anesthetic technique (general, local + sedation, spinal…). In addition, you will undergo a physical examination in accordance with the intervention (auscultation, blood pressure measurement if applicable) and will focus on what medication you can take before the intervention. If necessary, our anesthetist will prescribe anti-anxiety medication for the night before surgery.

INFORMATION ABOUT ANESTHESIA

• The anesthetist is a fundamental and essential part of the surgical team. Its mission is to ensure that the patient’s experience is as pleasant as possible throughout the entire process, minimizing the discomfort resulting from the intervention and, above all, minimizing possible risks and GUARANTEE THEIR SAFETY. The purpose of anesthesia is to allow surgical interventions or any procedure to be carried out with maximum safety and comfort, without suffering pain or anxiety.
• The anesthetist is responsible for caring for all the patient’s vital functions during surgery and for their health throughout the perioperative period.
• The anesthetists at Clínica Forcada have been trained at the Gregorio Marañón General University Hospital in Madrid, a reference hospital in this medical specialty, and continue to combine their activity at Clínica Forcada with their activity at said hospital. Each of the anesthetists accumulates more than 20 years of work experience, following the highest standards of training and professional development of the specialty.
• First of all, we want to point out that it is normal to feel anxiety or some fear when going to an operating room, especially if it is our first time or if we are unaware of the current reality of surgical practice. But it is very important to highlight that, thanks to the great evolution that our specialty has undergone, the risks have been perfectly controlled for decades.
• The risks when undergoing an anesthetic procedure are given, mainly, by the diseases that the patient has and the type of surgical intervention to which they will be subjected.
• A patient without diseases, or with diseases perfectly controlled by their usual doctor, will present for surgery with minimized risks. In this type of patient, the associated important complications are anecdotal and have not occurred in our work at the Clinic.
• Furthermore, at Clínica Forcada the vast majority of the interventions performed DO NOT represent significant stress for the body, which also drastically reduces the associated risks. This means that our surgeons, with Dr. Forcada at the head, can focus completely on aesthetic results (supported by the multiple surgeries performed over all these years).
• The first thing we anesthetists do is an INDIVIDUALIZED PREOPERATIVE MEDICAL EVALUATION of each patient. The objective of this evaluation is:
  1. Study your health status to analyze the possible presence of diseases, previously known or not. We will ask about your medical history, prescription and over-the-counter medications (including herbal supplements), allergies, and previous experiences with anesthesia.
  2. Carry out the OPTIMIZATION that may be necessary so that it arrives in the best conditions for surgery. The majority of our patients are healthy or have mild, well-controlled illnesses and do not usually require further studies before surgery, but the objective of the consultation is to detect those who do need it and act accordingly.
  3. As part of this evaluation, tests are performed (analysis, electrocardiogram), which can be expanded if the anesthetist considers it necessary for a comprehensive understanding of the patient.
  4. Plan appropriate anesthesia for each surgical procedure and postoperative pain treatment.
  5. You must sign the informed consent, a legal document in which you affirm that the type of anesthesia to be performed and the possible risks associated with it have been correctly explained to you (in addition to the documentation you are reading and all the individualized verbal information that we are giving you. to transmit, the consent also explains all this information in a more general way)

• It is this exhaustive knowledge of each patient and the implementation of the optimization that is considered necessary in some cases that allows us to minimize the risks and plan the intervention appropriately.
• Once approval is given by us, a date for the surgery can be set. It is sometimes possible that you already have a date before speaking to us, as we insist that the majority of cases do not involve actions prior to the intervention and can be easily planned. If in your case there is any circumstance different from the usual one, we will talk to you and make sure that all the planning fits your needs and comfort.
• From the moment of our approval and with the date of the surgery finalized, we will be fully available so that you can ask us any questions that may arise or to inform us of the presence of any new intercurrent medical process (for example, tonsillitis with fever).
• We will give you written instructions for the day of surgery that you must follow strictly (FASTING, NOT wearing makeup, nail polish, earrings, piercings, contact lenses, or dental prostheses). If you have piercings, earrings or rings that you anticipate will be difficult to remove, do not leave them until the day of surgery, go to a specialized establishment to help you remove them, since if you take them to the operating room with them it is possible that at Trying to remove them could damage them, lose them… Failure to fast implies the suspension of the surgery for a strict safety issue.
• Once in the operating room we will not be separated from you for a single second, we will be present from your arrival there until we accompany you after surgery to the recovery unit.
• When you arrive at the operating room, the entire team (surgeons, anesthetist and nurse) will review your entire medical history and the entire surgical plan with you to once again guarantee that everything is correct.
• After carrying out the aforementioned checks, the first thing we will do in the operating room is channel a vein to have an access route to administer medication. This way we will put you to sleep and you will receive all the necessary medication during the intraoperative period, as well as what we will schedule for the postoperative period.
• We must insist that during any intervention the anesthetist is ALWAYS next to the patient, monitoring all his vital signs, ensuring permanent hypnosis, analgesia and correct state of the body. This also allows the surgeon to be focused on the surgical technique he is carrying out, although there is permanent communication between both. Monitoring is adapted to the needs of each patient and surgery, to guarantee MAXIMUM SAFETY.

• From the moment we administer the medication to anesthetize you until the surgery is finished, you will be completely asleep and you will not know anything at all. It is normal that when you wake up you are a little dazed and confused, but this feeling will disappear quickly and is usually accompanied by a pleasant feeling of well-being.
• In interventions with sedation, of greater or lesser degree, only a partial disconnection of consciousness occurs, sufficient to guarantee adequate comfort and analgesia for each patient and surgery.
• After finishing the surgery and regaining consciousness, we will transfer you to the recovery unit, where you will stay for around 30-90 minutes depending on each case, under our supervision, finishing waking you up completely, making sure that everything is correct and that the analgesia is before moving to the floor room.
• During your stay on the ward you will also be permanently monitored, and under the supervision of the surgeons, who will be in contact with us. The Moncloa nurses will inform us of any incident (the Moncloa Clinic is a prestigious center and one of our complete confidence that ensures the necessary standards for our surgeries). You will have a scheduled treatment to guarantee your analgesia, as well as rescue medication in case you need it at any time. Discomfort is normal in any postoperative period, but we do take all measures to reduce it as much as possible.
• Anesthesia, like any drug that we may take occasionally at home, is metabolized and eliminated by the liver and kidneys (and the lungs in the case of anesthetic gases). That is, there is no need to worry about phrases like “you have to vomit the anesthesia” or “you have to urinate the anesthesia”, our body takes care of everything. Just note that in any surgery and anesthesia there is a certain probability of nausea or vomiting in the postoperative period, which is only annoying, limited to a few hours at most and does not pose a risk. In the operating room and in the postoperative period, medication is administered both to prevent them and to treat them if they appear. It is known that nausea is more frequent in long-term surgeries, in certain types of surgery (laparoscopy, gynecological, breast) and in some patients (women, young people, patients with a history of nausea in other surgeries).
• The anesthetists at Clínica Forcada are fully available for any questions that may arise from the moment you come to the Clinic for the first time.