[Role of the anesthetist in the recovery stage]

Surveillance of the patient in the particularly critical phase immediately following operation and anaesthetic must be considered a purely anaesthesiological task. Today, it is no longer considered sufficient merely to keep the patient under observation until his protective reflexes have returnded; rather, appropriate postoperative therapeutic measures must be initiated already during the recovery phase to enable the patient to be returned to the nursing ward with his or her vital functions optimal and stabilised. The tasks of the anaesthetist in the recovery phase are as follows: safeguarding of the transportation phase of the patient from the operating room to the recovery unit; hand-over of the patient to the recovery staff; monitoring for possible complications in the recovery phase, collection of suitable diagnostic parameters to determine the current state of the patient; initiation of optimised treatment as dictated by the state of the patient; documentation of all findings as well as all therapeutic measures instituted, and deciding on the further transfer of the patient.