Friday, June 8, 2012

Plenary Session - Allied Health and Nutrition

Co-Chairs: Ms. Tammy Eborall, Ms. Sue Ekserci

Preoperative Bariatric Assessment

In the lasts 25 years our Bariatric team has outlived the time when these surgeries had a bad reputation in the medical community. Of course , It’s no longer the case. Why did it change? Mostly because of the huge improvement of its patients long term results. How did it happen?  Better surgeries, better equipment, better preoperative assessment, better perioperative measures and better follow up. But ultimately everything starts with an optimal interdisciplinary patient’s assessment and preparation..

Patient education is the first tool to obtain a well informed ,realistic and ultimately collaborative patient. The team must also scrutinized every aspects of the patient such as medical and surgical history ,psychosocial and financial problems ,nutritional status and habits, cognitive and physical limitations. The patients physical and mental preparation are also included in this preoperative assessment since these steps are privileged moments to interact  and evaluate the patient’s  in a follow up setting. All these elements interlink to help the bariatric team to determines the patient’s risk- benefit ratio and ultimately select the best procedure.

Unfortunately there is no absolute  guidelines to select the patients or the surgery and patient’s assessment always raises questions and issues within the interdisciplinary team and an experienced team’s guidance can sometimes be make the difference.

Learning Objectives

Upon completion of this activity, participants should be able to:

  • Describe the benefits of an accurate and thorough preoperative assessment
  • Recognize the various aspects of assessment
  • Specify issues in preoperative assessment
  • Select appropriate bariatric surgical candidate and recognize contraindications for surgery

Speaker

Ms. Nathalie Turgeon
Bariatric Coordinator
Institut univeristaire de cardiologie et pneumologie de QuébecI (IUCPQ)

Nathalie Turgeon graduated from the University of Montreal in 1991 and has worked as a registered nurse and head nurse assistant for four years in cardiology/medicine and four years in the emergency department. Since 1998, she has been the Bariatric Co-ordinator and a Bariatric Clinic Nurse at the Quebec Cardiology and Pneumology Institute. Nathalie is a former member of the Ad Hoc Bariatric Development Committee for the Quebec Health Ministry. She is actively implicated in the formation and development of bariatric teams in the province of Quebec.