Outpatient preoperative assessment: the anaesthetist's view

The functions of an outpatient anaesthetic clinic are discussed in relation to the first 100 patients who attended. Preoperative assessment excluded 11 patients who would have been refused anaesthesia for elective operations without further treatment. Six of these required preoperative physiotherapy, 4 antihypertensive therapy, and 1 hospital admission for incipient myocardial infarction. The clinic also played an important role with regard to advice and reassurance of the patient from an experienced anaesthetist, organising suitable admission dates, and detecting anaesthetic and surgical hazards, especially dental caries and obesity, which could be corrected before operation. Two patients developed postoperative complications which could not have been foreseen.