The Complete Recovery Room Book

The care that a patient receives in the first hours after surgery is crucial to minimizing the risk of complications such as heart attacks, pneumonia, and blood clots. As the patient awakes from their drug-induced coma, it takes time for them to metabolize and excrete these drugs, during which period they remain unable to care for themselves, and at increased risk of harm. The body undergoes extreme physiological assault from pain, hypothermia, hypoxia, acid-base disturbance and shifts in blood volume. The recovery room staff must manage these symptoms in both comatose and physiologically unstable patients, and deal with the immediate post-operative care of surgical patients by attending to drips, drains and dressings. It is an environment where many skills and equipment are brought together, and successful development of these units has significantly reduced the number of deaths from preventable conditions.

In helping the patient from the high pressure operating theatre to the wards, nurses, surgeons and anaesthetists will be required to manage day-to-day problems, but also make difficult decisions. Previous editions of this book have established it as the definitive guide to setting-up, equipping, staffing, and administering this acute care unit. It includes basic science such as physiology and pharmacology, specific symptoms including pain and vomiting, and has chapters devoted to the unique post-operative needs of individual types of surgery. This new edition brings this important text up to date, including new material on risk management, administration and quality control; expanded sections on anaesthetic practice and infection prevention; and incorporating the recent developments in pain control, nausea and vomiting, care of children, pregnancy, and care of the cardiac patient.

The book contains black-and-white illustrations.

Many of the problems of the first postoperative week - such as heart attacks, pneumonia, clots in the legs and postoperative confusion - can be reduced by proper care in the critical first hour or two following surgery. However, little has been written about managing patients immediately after surgery, and many hospitals still do not have formally organized recovery rooms.
This book deals with all aspects of the recovery room - starting with the basics of how to establish, equip, staff and administer this acute care unit. There is guidance on how to recognize and manage emergencies, and practical advice on dealing with every day problems, such as pain control, nausea and vomiting and fluid balance. Much of the information here is either entirely new, or scattered through the medical literature. No other book covers every aspect of the recovery room in such a useful and readable form.
Whilst it remains a practical "hands-on" manual, this second edition has been almost entirely rewritten, with a stronger emphasis on practical physiology and pharmacology. This will not only enable trainees and junior staff to work out the solutions to many problems from basic principles, but will also make this new edition invaluable as a basic text for training courses in perioperative medicine and nursing.

Paula A. Craigo

This second edition provides an overview of postoperative care with an expanded section on physiology and pharmacology. "It aims to provide guidance in postoperative care for those who are trained neither as anesthetists nor postanesthesia nurses, particularly in the isolated hospital, where highly specialized personnel and equipment may not be available. Purposely dogmatic and direct, it does not compare theories or argue different points of view, and it is admirably unpretentious and down-to-earth. "Aimed at physicians and nurses who must care for postoperative patient, its aim is simply to help you save lives. This goal is well realized, placing this book in a unique and useful niche. The authors are Australian clinical anesthesiologists experienced in widely varying medical systems, whose work in the Pacific islands revealed a need for a straightforward guide to management of all types of postsurgical patients. "Simple line drawings are used effectively to clarify and emphasize concepts. Clear tables summarize take-home points. References vary in frequency, being absent entirely in some chapters and numbering more than 30 in others, with most less than 5 years old. If anything, there are more references than expected in this type of clinical guide. The organization of the table of contents is not entirely clear, with some thirty chapters in a relatively short book with no apparent master plan. Topics within chapters are frequently in alphabetical order. "This book provides a distillation of basic hand-on care and clinical wisdom, covering postoperative care from drain care to resuscitation to management of analgesia. It would be useful to anesthesia trainees and nursesnew to postoperative care, and as an overall review for those practitioners venturing into medically underdeveloped areas where usual support personnel may be less available.

Anthea Hatfield is an Honorary Life Member of the Pacific Island Society of Anaesthetists. Michael Tronson was previously Director of Anaesthesia at Prince Harry's Hospital, Melbourne, and Monash Medical Centre, Melbourne. He was previously a Senior Lecturer at Monash University, with over 20 years' experience in medical and paramedical training. He is an Honorary Life Member of the Pacific Island Society of Anaesthetists.