Fly In Fly Out Surgery in Regional Areas
Bariatric surgery is becoming an increasingly common procedure in Australia in the treatment of obesity.
Patients located outside of major metropolitan areas often choose fly in fly out surgeons from Melbourne or Sydney. This is more and more common in the treatment and management of bariatric surgery in rural settings.
Although access to treatment is an important consideration, fly-in fly-out doctors and surgical care can present unique challenges to post-operative care, especially with follow-up and post-operative management. Following surgery, experts say that majority of patients who develop complications after bariatric surgery present with symptoms and signs of the complication. Some of these symptoms, such as shoulder-tip pain, can be reported in patients by 6 weeks.
But what happens when your doctor isn’t available to assess you ?
Inadequate follow-up and delayed post-operative examinations give rise to poor outcomes. Further reporting of symptom to health professionals other than the treating surgeon is fraught with difficulty due to the highly specialized area of surgery.
Delayed or inadequate review, without physical examination, can mean that symptoms or signs of complication can be overlooked, and can lead to catastrophic outcomes.
You should always be aware of what care is available to you in the post-operative period before making a decision where you have the surgery in order to access proper care quickly if needed.