Robert Whitfield MD explains why he requires in-person pre-op appointments 1-2 weeks before surgery. A physical exam catches things a video call can't, he refines the surgical plan, and he takes annotated photos for your medical record.
Today we're talking about our pre op appointment for patients who live in or near Austin. This appointment typically happens between one to two weeks before surgery. For my patients traveling from out of state or further away, we'll do this the day before. I always have an in person appointment with my patients pre op. It's incredibly important to have an in person appointment if you're always doing things virtually. Please. You lack the ability to do a physical examination. And so our preoperative appointment in general is to propose to go over to reiterate our surgical plan again based on our initial consultations, our virtual discussions, and then answer questions regarding the plan. So we'll go over specifically about why I do that, why I choose a particular type of lift and I will typically take a picture with my iPad and draw on it for them. Then I'll insert it in their file, which goes into their simplast EHR chart and they can access it anytime. If not, we can simply email it to them if they're having difficulty.
