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Operating lists

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

Authoring team

Operating lists can often cause much heartache for the house surgeon. Points to be remembered are as follows:

  • often the surgeon will have preferences about the order of the patients. General the principles are as follows:
    • old before young adults
    • underlying disease, especially diabetes, before fit
    • clean before dirty - i.e. abscess excision or similar
    • larger operations usually before smaller
  • the person who submits and signs the list takes the responsibility for any errors on that list. Thus abbreviations should be avoided - left and right must be written in full and ditto marks avoided.
  • for last minute changes to lists there are a variety of people to inform, including the surgeon, the theatre, the anaesthetist and the ward. Failure to inform any of these results in large amounts of confusion.

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