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The reason for this site's existence
There is an increasing trend towards cutting costs for hospital stays and
admissions. In the process, many people are now being admitted for an operation
on the day of surgery and discharged on the same day wherever
possible. While there are certain merits to this approach there are also some
obvious disadvantages. There is limited time for people to see and to be seen
prior to surgery. While every effort is made to see patients pre-operatively for a thorough
clinical assessment, time constraints may make this occur very close to the
time of surgery. Often this limits the ability to adequately address patient's
concerns and, if pre-medication has been chosen
to be used, limits the time a patient will be pre-medicated prior to
surgery. This can lead to unnecessary anxiety for the patient which can make the
experience more unpleasant than it should be. This web site at least addresses the
most common concerns about anaesthesia and hopefully will alleviate a lot of
that anxiety and can make the time before surgery more productive by allowing
much more directed questions about the patient's main concerns.
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How this site was created
The plan was to create a site that was visually appealing, easy to read and
had information that was easy to find - these are the goals of any site design. The website
slashdot.org was used for layout inspiration.
A major concern I had in creating this site was that it should be visible to
anyone with internet access. As I personally have an interest in Linux I was
also keen for this site to be viewable using any operating system. To do this I
wanted to minimise the difference in appearance of the site over a wide range of
different web browsers and screen resolutions. First, the site was designed to
conform to the latest HTML (HyperText Markup Language) specifications as set by
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). No frames,
java, javascript, activeX or plugins are required to view this site. Tables have
been used throughout the site, though, to make the layout dynamic and cascading
style sheets have been used to cope with different colour and size browsers. Any
images added to the site are not vital to understanding the information so text
browsers can be used. Using the GIMP all
images have been compressed as much as is possible to minimise load time, have
thumbnails where appropriate and are interlaced (visible before they finish loading).
The site was hand coded using a simple text editor to be as optimised
as possible. The machine was my home computer running Linux-Mandrake 7.2
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Some information about myself and contact details.
At the time of writing this web site I was completing my final year of training
in Anaesthesia. I was working as an anaesthetic registrar based at St. Vincent's Hospital Melbourne. I am married
to my wonderful wife Despina who is an engineer and we both reside in Melbourne,
Australia. This web site was designed both as a formal project for the college of Anaesthetists and out of interest.
I am an avid computer user, gnu/linux and electronic free speech advocate. Comments and questions
can be directed to aip@kolivas.org.
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What this site isn't
This site was not designed to be a comprehensive reference. It is meant only as
a guide for what often happens in Australian practice and most developed nations. It is also quite general
rather than specific because practice is constantly evolving and differs from
anaesthetist to anaesthetist, hospital to hospital, state to state and country
to country. I have tried wherever possible to avoid giving opinions. The few opinions expressed within this site are those of the author
only and do not represent any department, hospital or other body. The author
cannot be held liable for the information presented, and this information comes with no guarantee
of any kind.
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Who I absolutely must thank
My inspiration is my wife Despina and I have to give credit to my friends
Matthew Hull for web site critique, Matthew Miller for layman proof-reading, and
Dr Rowan Thomas for professional proof-reading and assistance.
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Copyright notice
Copyright © 2001 Con Kolivas
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in
any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
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