pre-op nutrition can reduce readmissions.
There is a growing movement in medicine that echoes and expands
on Dr. Evans's findings, and seeks to shine a brighter light on pre-op
nutrition as part of a revised approach to the entire surgical process
that produces more positive outcomes. The enhanced recovery after
surgery (ERAS) concept has led to the founding of The ERAS Society
in Europe in 2010, and the subsequent 2014 founding of the American
Society for Enhanced Recovery (ASER). While these organizations
focus mostly on perioperative protocols and research, they also solid-
ly view pre-op nutrition as a vital component of post-operative recov-
ery and health.
For example, ASER founding member Tong Joo Gan, MD, MHS,
FRCA, professor and chairman of the Department of Anesthesiology at
SUNY at Stony Brook,
co-authored a March
2016 paper,
"Preoperative
Nutrition and
Prehabilitation"
(osmag.net/JpxE3D),
for the Anesthesiology
Clinics journal that
said "identifying nutri-
tionally deficient
patients lets pre-op
intervention optimize
their nutritional sta-
tus." A December
2015 paper by Elles
Steenhagen, RD, of
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