The first contact with you usually takes place in our consultation hours (OGIT), where you have presented yourself personally or where you have been referred by your attending, registered physician. Here you will be questioned in detail about your symptoms, a brief physical examination and a review of the examinations already performed as an outpatient. If further examinations are necessary before a decision on therapy can be made, these will be registered via our outpatient clinic. In this case, you will also receive a follow-up appointment for our outpatient clinic. If it is necessary to consult with your attending physician / general practitioner, we will also do this directly.

After all the necessary examination findings have been compiled, a detailed discussion will be held with you - and if desired also with your relatives - about the treatment strategy and about therapy alternatives. If the decision to operate is made, a detailed discussion will take place about the operation itself, about the risks and about any effects of the operation on your daily life.

If you have a malignant disease, your case will also be discussed in a larger group of doctors (tumor board). This is necessary to ensure that the treatment of your disease is carried out in accordance with the current recommendations for the specific malignant disease. If, as a result of this discussion, it is determined that pre-treatment (radiation, chemotherapy) is necessary prior to the actual surgery, you will be given the appropriate appointments within our hospital. If desired (if possible), pre-treatment can also be done close to home. After completion, we will then ask you to return to our consultation hours for surgery planning.

After completion of the necessary examinations (if necessary pre-treatment) and a detailed discussion about the operation, appointments for in-patient admission will be made by our Patient Management. In exceptional cases, a direct (telephone) presentation via our patient management is possible if the complete examination findings are available. In these cases, the direct allocation of inpatient admission appointments is possible after prior review of the findings by our team.

In many cases, surgery is possible on the day of admission. This shortens the hospital stay for you. However, this requires preoperative preparation on an outpatient basis. This includes a blood sample, an informative talk, an introduction to the anesthesiologist (premedication) and, if necessary, an ECG, X-ray or ultrasound examination. These are carried out by our patient management team.

On the day of admission, you can have another short conversation with your surgeon and clarify any remaining questions. About half an hour before you are driven to the operating room, you will receive a sedative tablet and will then be met by the anesthesiologist in the operating room. 

What you need to think about when you present yourself at the consultation

• Current medication (especially blood thinning medication, medication due to a sugar disease)
• Allergies
• operations in the past
• examinations performed on an outpatient basis, e.g. X-rays, computer tomographies, special blood tests, cardiac catheter examinations, gastroscopies or colonoscopies (findings in written form or on CD)