Post Operative Care: General Notes
This booklet is intended as a practical guide to patient care for registrars, medical officers, interns and medical students attached to the gynaecology units at the University of the Witwatersrand Academic Hospitals. Anyone can use it.
Checking post operative patients should be done systematically & thoroughly, & care must be taken to explain the operation to the patient & if at all to reassure them.
Examine the patient carefully noting obvious features of concern such as tachypnoea, tachycardia, hypotension, chest abnormalities, & marked abdominal distension or rigidity. Note colour & amount of urine passed.
Always check the observation charts in the notes, & any clinical findings entered by doctors who may have been called to see the patient.
- Urinary catheters may be removed on the day after operation, except with vaginal hysterectomies, anterior repairs or operations for stress incontinence (day 2).
- For most pelvic surgery, patients may be fed & mobilized on the day after operation
- Postoperative antibiotics should only be given for a specific indication – established infection or suspected infection
- With postoperative pyrexia beyond 24 hours after operation, consider chest, urinary tract, wound & vaginal vaults sepsis, & thromboembolism