Patient and Family Teaching (Per Procedure)

Guidelines:

• Education is required for informed consent
  • Risks/benefits/recovery/future need
  • “Need for further surgery” vague
  • Alternatives
• Caregiver competence
• Must be completed while aox3
  • PACU is not reliable teaching

Considerations:

• Surgical risks AND anesthesia risks
• Should have considerable teaching done in clinic before reporting for routine surgery
  • Verify knowledge
  • Using medical terms= suspicious
    • Ensure actual knowledge, not administrative knowledge
• Documentation!
• Handouts
• Contact info

Nurse’s role:

• Patient interview for knowledge assessment
• Teaching as necessary
• Documentation of teaching
• Facilitation of physician teaching where required
  • Refer to physician instead of estimations
• Ensure caregiver knowledge

Pitfalls:

• Risks undersold by team
• Patient underestimates impact of surgery
• Patient distraction during teaching – pain
• Caregiver not present
• Desire to comfort can alter conversation
  • Sugar coating is not helpful

Examples:

• Patient reporting for gastric bypass mentions “I’m so glad I’m done with that diet now”(bariatric diet will be for life, red flag city)
• Patient with implants consents to MRI later in life (catastrophic education deficit!!!)
• Patients poor compliance to regimen alters healing

Linchpins (Key Points):

• The patient and family will be required to pick up their own healthcare after surgery, and need the tools to do so effectively with the right decisions.