Questions to ask before surgery

Most medical appointments you can do over. A surgery you usually cannot. You are giving informed consent to something irreversible, often while anxious and short on time, and that is the worst state in which to remember a dense conversation. People forget 40 to 80 percent of what a clinician tells them almost immediately, a review in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine found, so walking in with the questions already written down is not fussy. It is how you actually use the visit.

This sheet is the surgery-specific version of our broader questions to ask your doctor playbook. Check the questions that fit your situation, bring someone who can take notes while you listen, and ask whether you can record the conversation so you can hear it again when your head is clearer.

Before the details of how and when, settle whether the operation is the right call. A simple way to hold that decision is the BRAN framework, four questions that work for any procedure: What are the Benefits? What are the Risks? What are the Alternatives? And what happens if I do Nothing, or wait? The last one is the question people forget to ask, and it is often the most clarifying. Watchful waiting, physical therapy, or medication is sometimes a real option, and a surgeon worth trusting will tell you so.

If the decision feels big, a second opinion is a normal and expected step, not an insult to your surgeon. Medicare actively encourages it before non-emergency surgery and helps pay for it: Part B covers 80 percent of the approved cost after your deductible, and it will even help pay for a third opinion if the first two disagree. Most private plans cover one too. Our guide on how to get a second opinion walks through getting your records and imaging released so the second surgeon is not starting from scratch.

If you ask your surgeon only one thing about their experience, ask how many of this exact operation they do in a year. It feels awkward, and it is one of the most useful questions you can ask, because volume is tied to outcomes. In a study of 474,108 Medicare patients across eight major operations, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003, operative mortality fell as a surgeon's volume rose for every single procedure. The authors put it plainly: patients can often improve their chances of survival substantially by choosing surgeons who perform the operation frequently.

A good surgeon will not be offended by the question; they will answer it. While you are there, confirm they are board certified in the right specialty, that the hospital or surgery center is accredited, and who exactly will be operating, because at teaching hospitals part of the procedure may be done by a resident under supervision. None of this is distrust. It is the same due diligence you would do for anything that matters this much.

This is the section to get right, because medication mistakes around surgery are both common and avoidable. Bring a complete list of everything you take, and hand it over: not just prescriptions, but the over-the-counter pills, the vitamins, and the supplements. The things people leave off are exactly the ones that matter. The American College of Surgeons specifically flags blood thinners and antiplatelet drugs (such as warfarin, Eliquis, Xarelto, Plavix, and aspirin), the anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen and naproxen, and a list of bleeding-risk supplements that includes fish oil, vitamin E, ginkgo, garlic, ginger, and ginseng.

Some of these may need to be paused before surgery, but which ones, and exactly when, is your surgeon's decision, not something to guess from an article or stop on your own. So the move is simple: show them the whole list and ask which to stop and when, which to take the morning of with a sip of water, and how to handle a blood thinner or diabetes medicine specifically, since diabetes doses are usually adjusted when you will not be eating. Keep a current medication list you can hand over in ten seconds. You will also be told not to eat or drink for a set window beforehand, often clear liquids up to about two hours before and no heavy meal for several hours; your anesthesia team gives you the exact times, and following them keeps the surgery from being delayed or cancelled.

The questions people most regret skipping are the ones about afterward, because that is where surprises are hardest to manage. Ask what recovery really looks like week by week, what the pain plan is, and when you can do ordinary things again: drive, work, lift, climb stairs, shower. Ask how to care for the incision or any drain or device, and get a clear list of the warning signs that mean call the surgeon versus go straight to the emergency room.

Then handle the logistics that are easy to forget until the morning of. For almost any procedure with sedation or general anesthesia, you cannot drive yourself home, and many places will not even start the operation without a named adult to take you. So line it up in advance: who drives you home, who stays the first night or two, who picks up the new prescriptions, and what equipment (a walker, a raised toilet seat, ice) should already be at home. If you are the one doing the driving and the staying, our hospital discharge checklist is the companion for the day they actually come home.