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Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery |
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Anesthesia
You may choose to have your surgery awake, sleepy or completely anesthetized. If you have a small problem such as a skin tumor or a small scar that needs to be excised, the cheapest, easiest and safest way to do this is with little or no preoperative medication. If the surgery is more extensive or if you are particularly frightened or nervous about the surgery, you can be medicated with tranquilizers like Valium, and narcotics like Demerol. Any time you take any medication, you incur some risk, for all of these drugs affect your brain and your heart. You also incur some cost, both for the drugs and the extra time involved in giving them to you. We have had a great deal of experience with this kind of premedication, and have found it to be safe.
General anesthesia is used for most cases and for those situations in which a patient wishes to be completely asleep and know nothing about what is happening during surgery. General anesthesia incurs additional risk and additional expense.
Minor procedures are performed in the operating area in the Head and Neck Surgery Clinic. All other procedures are performed in an operating room. If your surgery is to be performed as an outpatient (in other words, if you come in in the morning and go home in the afternoon) then the surgery is normally performed in our Outpatient Surgery Center, under local or general anesthesia. Operating rooms require a tremendous investment in people and equipment and so your surgery costs more when it is performed in the operating room.
Terence Davidson, M.D., F.A.C.S.
UCSD Otolaryngology Division
200 West Arbor Drive
San Diego, CA 92103-8895
(619) 543-6631 |