How many questions is too many?

If a surgeon is impatient with a written list, that is an answer. A date is not a favour they are doing you.

Should I email the list first?

Yes, if the practice allows it. You want answers in the room as well, so you can watch how they are given.

Questions to ask before you book an operating date

A printable list for the second consult: devices, hospitals, revision, feeding, imaging and the unromantic logistics of a Sydney theatre day.

The first consult is for chemistry and measurements. The week before you pay a deposit is for a list. Write the answers down. People forget once the date exists.

This list assumes you have read what a consult should include. It is the sharper instrument.

About the person and the place

What is your AHPRA specialist registration, exactly?
Where will I be asleep, and who is the anaesthetist?
If I have a bleed at 11 p.m., who do I call, and where do I go?
How many of this exact operation have you done in the past year?

About the device and the plan

What fill, surface, shape and profile, and why those?
What is the device’s current TGA status?
What implant card and registry process do I leave with?
If theatre measurements disagree with today’s plan, how do you decide?

See fill, surface and sizing so you can tell a complete answer.

About the body you will still have

What do you expect for breastfeeding?
How will this change mammograms?
What placement, and what will my pec do when I flex?
If I need a lift and I refuse the scars, what result are you willing to own?

About money and revision

Please unpack the quote into surgeon, assistant, anaesthetist, hospital, device, garment.
What do I pay if we operate again at two weeks? At two years?
What does the warranty actually pay in Australia?
When is the deposit refundable?

About the unromantic week

When may I drive, desk-work, lift a child, swim?
Which bra, for how long?
Who answers email on the weekend?

If you are still comparing surgeons, FRACS is the method. If you are tempted by an overseas package, medical tourism is the pause.

A date is a contract with your future tired self. Ask the questions she would want answered.

After the answers, a cooling-off that is actually cool

Do not book from the car park. Go home. Sleep. Show the notes to the person who will look after you. If the answers shrank overnight, they were never solid. If they still stand, book. AHPRA’s culture of time exists because this field is full of people who decide while flattered.

You can want the operation and still wait a fortnight. Desire that survives a fortnight is more trustworthy than desire that needs a same-day deposit.

Questions about the day itself

What time do I arrive, and when should I stop eating and drinking?
Which medicines do I stop, including the ones I did not think were medicines?
Who meets me in recovery, and when does the first drink happen?
What do I wear home, and who must be with me?
When is the first review, and is it with you or a nurse?

These are not naïve. They are how people stop improvising in a car park.

Questions about the year, not the fortnight

When do you image silent rupture in someone like me?
What late swelling would you want called in hours, not weeks?
If I move interstate, how do I get my notes?
What do you tell people who become pregnant in the first year?

Write the answers in ink. A date without a year-plan is only a calendar event. You are booking a device that will live with you longer than the bruise.

A closing note from this desk

A list is not rudeness. Impatience with a list is an answer. Ask about the person, the device, the hospital, the money, the day, and the year. Write the answers in ink. Sleep before you pay.

If you are still comparing, take the same list to both rooms. If you are tempted by a flight, read medical tourism before the deposit. A date is a contract with your future tired self. She prefers verbs to vibes.

Questions for the person who will look after you

Give them the after-hours number. Ask them whether they can take a week of bags and children. Ask them whether they will tell you if you look worse than the letter predicted. A carer who is afraid to “bother the surgeon” is a dangerous carer. Make bothering part of the job description.

If no such person exists, hire the first forty-eight hours or postpone. This is not a purity test. It is how pockets stay where they were put.

If you forget the list in the room, that is why you emailed it first. Ask them to walk the email. If they never read it, you have another answer. A date is not an audition you must pass by being low-maintenance.

Add three logistics questions that people forget: who collects the script, who empties the bins, and who is allowed to post a photograph. The third is not cute. It is consent. The first two keep you from lifting on day four because the household did not believe the letter.

Ask who owns the photographs. Ask whether students will be in theatre. Ask whether the implant brand can change on the day and how you will be told. Small questions prevent large feelings later. Write the answers on the same page as the date. The date is not more important than the page.

Ask what happens if you get a cold in the week of theatre. Ask what happens if the device is back-ordered. Ask what happens if you change your mind after the deposit. Adult rooms have answers. Sales rooms have pressure.

Ask how long the operation is expected to take and who will call the person waiting. Waiting rooms invent disasters. A named time and a named caller prevent a few of them. Then go home and sleep before you pay. Sleep is part of the list.

Ask one more time, in your own words, what the plan is. If you cannot repeat it, you do not own it yet.

This article is independent editorial information for a general Australian audience. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not an advertisement for a health service or a particular practitioner. Decisions about surgery belong with you and an AHPRA-registered specialist who has examined you. See our editorial standards.