Anaesthesia explained before you consent — what it does, what is monitored, and what the real risks are.
This is the patient education service of Chongqing West District Hospital on anaesthesia and perioperative safety. It covers the pre-anaesthetic assessment, the techniques used in plastic and aesthetic surgery, what the equipment and the anaesthetist are doing while you are asleep, how pain and nausea are managed, and how the risks that remain are reduced. Nothing here is a guarantee, and the anaesthetist has the final say on whether it is safe to proceed.
Assessment before the day, an individual fasting instruction rather than a general rule, and the anaesthesia, intensive-care, imaging and blood-bank backup of a tertiary general hospital behind every operation.
- Pre-anaesthetic assessment
- Individual fasting instructions
- Continuous intraoperative monitoring
- Tertiary-hospital critical-care backup
Anaesthesia planned for you, not applied to you
Every anaesthetic in this hospital is built the same way: an assessment first, a plan that names its own review points, and a named anaesthetist who stays with you for the whole operation.
Assess before the day
The anaesthetist reviews your heart, lungs and airway, every medicine you take, and what happened under anaesthesia before. Most of what changes a plan comes out of that conversation, and an incomplete picture is the most avoidable risk of all. Sometimes the assessment leads to further tests; sometimes it leads to a postponement.
Plan the technique and the recovery
The plan names the technique, the monitoring, the pain strategy and the anti-nausea strategy. It also states in advance what would make the team change course on the day. Fasting is calculated for you individually rather than issued as a general rule, because stomach emptying differs between patients.
Stay with you throughout
A named anaesthetist remains with you for the entire operation, adjusting depth, ventilation, fluids, temperature and pain control as the surgery moves through its stages. Recovery is staged against stated criteria, and you are handed over to the ward or to your escort with a written plan.
Who is accountable for your perioperative safety
The leadership of the Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics Medical Center plans every operation together with the hospital's anaesthesia and critical-care services. The surgeon decides whether an operation is worthwhile and can be done; the anaesthetist decides whether it is safe to put this patient through anaesthesia today. Those are deliberately two separate judgements.
Shaoliang Wang, MD (王韶亮)
Center Director · Medical Reviewer
Center Director and the medical reviewer for this site. He is accountable for how surgery and anaesthesia are planned together in this centre: which patients need further assessment first, how a plan is changed when the assessment finds something, and when the right decision is not to proceed. 20+ years of tertiary-hospital surgery.
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Tongchun Mao, MD (毛彤春)
Operative Planning Lead · Deputy Director
Deputy Director and head of aesthetic surgery, and the lead for operative planning. He decides which procedures are appropriate and how long they will take, and works with the anaesthetic team on positioning, expected blood loss and how much operating time a patient can safely tolerate. Performs over 700 operations a year.
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Ke He, MD (何锞)
Skin & Laser Aesthetics · Deputy Director
Deputy Director and head of skin and laser aesthetics. She leads the skin-quality preparation that comes before a procedure and the laser-based scar and pigment aftercare that comes after, and she flags the skin conditions that should be treated before an operation is scheduled. 20+ years in laser and aesthetic dermatology.
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Yongbo Jia, MD (贾勇波)
Dermatology · Deputy Director
Deputy Director and head of dermatology. He manages the medical condition of the skin around an operation: preoperative assessment of anything that affects healing, control of barrier and pigment beforehand, and the dermatologic care that protects a result afterwards. Trained at the Institute of Dermatology, CAMS.
View profile →Anaesthesia, explained honestly
These guides are the education behind the consent conversation: what anaesthesia actually does, what the pre-anaesthetic assessment looks for, why fasting is not negotiable, what the monitors are measuring, what the real risks are and how they are reduced, and what recovery and pain control involve.
What Anaesthesia Is and the Types Used in Plastic and Aesthetic Surgery
What anaesthesia actually does, the four broad types used in plastic and aesthetic surgery — local, regional, sedation and general — and why the choice of technique is a clinical decision rather than a preference.
Read the guide →The Pre-Anaesthetic Assessment: What Your Anaesthetist Needs to Know
What a pre-anaesthetic assessment records about your heart, lungs, airway, medication and previous anaesthetics, and why an incomplete picture is the most avoidable risk of all.
Read the guide →Fasting Before Anaesthesia: Why the Rule Is Not Negotiable
Why fasting before anaesthesia exists, why the instruction is not negotiable, what counts as eating, and why the anaesthetic team gives every patient an individual instruction rather than a general rule.
Read the guide →Monitoring During Surgery: What Happens While You Are Asleep
What the equipment and the anaesthetist are actually doing during your operation — the standard measurements, the judgement that runs alongside them, and the record that is kept.
Read the guide →Risks of Anaesthesia and How They Are Reduced
An honest account of the real risks of anaesthesia — nausea, sore throat, dental injury, awareness, aspiration, and cardiac or respiratory events — and the systems that reduce them.
Read the guide →Waking Up and the Recovery Room: What to Expect
What you may feel as you wake from anaesthesia, what is monitored in the recovery room, why you may not remember any of it, and the criteria you must meet before you leave.
Read the guide →We will not sell you certainty we do not have
Anaesthesia in a modern hospital is very safe, and that is precisely why we will not pretend it is risk-free. No technique suits every patient equally, preparation lowers risk without removing it, some nausea, sore throat and drowsiness afterwards is expected, and a postponement is a safety decision rather than an inconvenience. Individual fitness is decided by the anaesthetist, not by the schedule and not by the patient. Our job is to explain all of that clearly enough that your consent is real.
Ask about your anaesthetic before the day
Reach out to arrange a pre-anaesthetic assessment or to ask a question about your plan. The anaesthetist will review your heart, lungs, airway, medication and previous anaesthetics, explain which technique is proposed and why, and set out the honest limits — including the possibility that the safest decision is to postpone.
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