Perioperative Assessment at the BGS Autumn Meeting

Dr Jugdeep Dhesi is Chair of the BGS Perioperative Care of Older People Ungergoing Surgery SIG (POPS) and is consultant physician and clinical lead for the POPS service at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospitals. She will be Chairing the POPS Session at the BGS Autumn Meeting.

Older surgical patients are presenting us geriatricians with challenges. How should geriatric medicine fit into the national agenda for perioperative medicine? Which models of care work best in improving outcomes for this complex multimorbid group of patients? Do different surgical subspecialties require different approaches? How should these services differ between the district general and teaching hospital? Should elective and emergency older surgical patients be given equivalent geriatric medicine input? How can we balance the frequent calls to involve geriatricians in the care of older surgical patients against the numerous unfilled consultant posts in ‘traditional’ geriatric medicine that already exist? These issues will be explored in the POPS SIG session at the BGS meeting in Glasgow (Friday 25th November).