Most of the surgical foot and ankle care is performed in an outpatient surgical center. You will arrive generally one hour prior to your scheduled procedure. You will be admitted to the center, change into an operative gown and get an intravenous line placed in the pre-admission area.

All pertinent health history will be discussed at this time as well as the most important review of your consent for surgery. The nursing staff will review what surgical procedure you are having and on what foot or ankle it will occur. You will see your surgeon prior to the surgical procedure and they will mark with a felt pen the correct extremity that will be having surgery.

You will then meet the anesthesiologist who will discuss further your health history as it relates to your procedure and then review with you the decision of anesthesia for your procedure. Most lower extremity surgery is performed with sedation. This means that the anesthesiologist will give you medications through your intravenous line that will provide sedation. The sleep-like state or MAC-monitored anesthesia care that you receive will also be supported by a local anesthetic injection in your foot or ankle by your surgeon that will provide anesthesia at the surgical site.

After your surgical procedure is performed you will be sent to the recovery area. Within minutes of your surgical procedure you should be wide awake. The MAC sedation that you received allows a very quick recovery with very limited post surgical complications including nausea and vomiting. Generally, within one-half hour post surgery you will be heading home for recovery.

A general anesthetic may on occasion be used for more complex foot and ankle surgical care. In these cases your recovery from anesthetic may be more prolonged. Because of the anesthetics uses there is a slightly higher risk of post surgical nausea and vomiting.

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