Checking in after day surgery averts lawsuits.(Gynecologic Surgery)

PASADENA, CALIF. -- Short-stay surgery has many practical and financial advantages, but it deprives the physician of making rounds in the hours and days following surgery--a fertile time for complications and, quite possibly, seeds of a medicolegal action.

That's why Dr. Richard Soderstrom, a retired Seattle gynecologist and consultant for the medical liability insurance firm the Doctors Company, encourages surgeons to speak to patients by phone the evening of surgery and perhaps the next day as well.

The practice is especially important if the procedure wasn't entirely routine, he said at the annual meeting of the Obstetrical and Gynecological Assembly of Southern California.

"Certainly it would seem good risk management if you had a difficult case in same-day surgery or something went awry that wasn't quite what you expected--it would really be smart to pick up the phone and call the next day and see how they're doing."

Dr. Soderstrom advised ob.gyns. to alert their front office staff and nurses to potential red flags in day-surgery patients, such as a request for more pain medication.

"Poor postoperative progress mandates a hands-on visit," he said.

Sometimes a day-surgery patient has traveled far for surgery and develops complications only upon her return home, where "[she] ends up in someone else's emergency room.