The Complete Recovery Room Book

The care that a patient receives in the first hours after surgery are crucial to minimising the risk of complications such as heart attacks, pneumonia, and blood clots. In spite of this, many hospitals still do not have formally organised recovery rooms. The Complete Recovery Room Book has established itself as the definitive guide on how to establish, equip, staff, and administer this acute care unit. The five years since completion of the previous edition have seen many changes in anaesthetic and surgical techniques, which, in some cases, enable patients to have their operation and be discharged, whether on the same day, or the day after their surgery. Pre-assessment clinics have reduced the incidence of unfit patients presenting for surgery, and this brings fewer unexpected problems to the recovery room. Significant advances from research into pain mechanisms have allowed a better understanding of analgesics and more efficient pain control. Alongside these improvements though, other dangers have emerged, such as the increased risk of diseases like HIV or hepatitis being transmitted, and just recently, latex allergy.

The third edition of this book has been heavily revised in order to take account of all these changes and medical advances, though provides an essential, practical source of reference that should be read by all anaesthetists, surgeons, recovery room nurses, and anyone involved in providing postoperative care.

Annotation

The book contains black-and-white illustrations.

Editorial Reviews

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.