Introduction

Although morbidity and mortality rates associated with ocular surgery are generally considered to be low, the perioperative management of ophthalmic surgery patients can be challenging. Often, these patients are older and have numerous medical conditions. In addition, the ophthalmic condition requiring surgery is sometimes directly related to an underlying systemic disease, such as diabetes mellitus or thyroid disease. Finally, for some delicate surgical procedures there may be specific requirements about the patient’s level of alertness during the operation, which in turn means that monitoring the level of sedation is particularly important for those patients. This chapter discusses some of the key issues to consider in the preoperative medical assessment and intraoperative management of the ocular surgery patient.

Excerpted from BCSC 2020-2021 series: Section 1 - Update on General Medicine. For more information and to purchase the entire series, please visit https://www.aao.org/bcsc.