Welcome to Week 3

Welcome back to our third and final week of Opioids and Surgery!

As you have learned in the previous two weeks, opioids remain a crucial component of surgical pain management, but their use is associated with significant societal and individual patient harm.

How can you best ensure you reduce the risk of harm whilst ensuring your patients continue to benefit from the analgesic effects of opioids during their recovery from surgery?

Several specific changes to clinical practice have been advocated in recent years by many national and international organisations and societies, through guidelines and position statements, to promote this aim.

Under the umbrella term of opioid stewardship, they provide a multifaceted framework which aims to guide the judicious use of opioids, avoiding practices known to be associated with harm and monitoring those patients at increased risk of complications, including persistent postoperative opioid use.

In this week, you will take a closer look at the different components of opioid stewardship in the preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative phases.

You will have the opportunity to examine the evidence supporting these novel approaches, and you will also hear from healthcare professionals regarding their experiences implementing these practices.

We hope you enjoy the week!