The day of the surgery

Here we provide a general overview of what may happen on the day of the surgery. Procedures vary between hospitals and according to whether you have surgery as an inpatient or outpatient.

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Admission and preparation

The hospital will give you a time to arrive, called the admission time. Arriving earlier doesn’t mean you’ll be admitted or have surgery sooner. When you’re admitted, you might not know the exact time of the surgery, but you’ll probably know if it will be in the morning or afternoon. Sometimes there are unexpected delays due to emergencies – the receptionists and nurses will keep you informed.

Before you go to the operating theatre, a nurse will:

review your medical history and whether you have any allergies
place an identification band around your wrist or ankle
check your blood pressure, pulse and weight
ask when and what you last ate and drank.

You will change into a surgical gown and put your personal possessions in a bag for storage or to give to your support person. If the surgery is to a part of your body with hair, it will be shaved unless you have already done it yourself. Some people are given a sedative (premedicine or premed) as an injection or tablet to relax them.

Let the nurse know if you think you have a cold or the flu, so they can assess your fitness for surgery.

This information was last reviewed in April 2019. View who reviewed this content.

Prof Andrew Spillane, Surgical Oncologist, Melanoma Institute of Australia, and Professor of Surgical Oncology, The University of Sydney Northern Clinical School, NSW; Lynne Hendrick, Consumer; Judy Holland, Physiotherapist, Calvary Mater Newcastle, NSW; Kara Hutchinson, Cancer Nurse Coordinator, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, VIC; A/Prof Declan Murphy, Urologist and Director of Genitourinary Oncology, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, VIC; Caitriona Nienaber, 13 11 20 Consultant, Cancer Council WA; Prof Stephan Schug, Director of Pain Medicine, Royal Perth Hospital, and Chair of Anaesthesiology and Pain Medicine, The University of Western Australia Medical School, WA; Dr Emma Secomb, Specialist Surgeon, Hinterland Surgical Centre, QLD. We would like to thank the health professionals, consumers and editorial teams who have worked on previous editions of this title.

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