Independent education · Sources and limitations documented
Portfolio / Breast perioperative learning

Clinical learning

Source snapshot · 5 November 2026

Breast reconstruction perioperative learning portfolio

Educational work by a pre-medical student — not medical advice. Not a clinical protocol, prescription, or patient handout, and not for patient care. See DISCLAIMER.

Reader’s guide · Authorship & review status · Disclaimer · Portfolio home

This repository studies perioperative anesthesia care for post-mastectomy breast implant revision and reconstruction. It is an independent educational portfolio, not a clinical protocol. The historical repository name contains "Protocol"; the materials are structured educational examples. Evidence from primary oncologic breast surgery, augmentation, implant revision and autologous reconstruction must be kept distinct.

Educational dosing reference — sourced (November 2026)

The modules include an educational dosing reference: illustrative doses, rates, maxima, intervals and thresholds.

  • Every number is tagged (for example, S6) to one entry in DOSING_SOURCES.md. Each entry gives the full citation or FDA label and the exact values that source supports.
  • Only acceptable source types are used: society guidelines and consensus statements, FDA-approved labeling, and score-validation papers.
  • Values without a verifiable source were changed or deleted. Each change is listed in RELEASE_NOTES.md.
  • This is still not a clinical protocol, order set or prescription. The doses are illustrative, not validated for implant revision, and must be individualized by the treating clinician under institutional policy. Several intraoperative uses (for example, dexmedetomidine as a general-anesthesia adjunct, IV lidocaine, low-dose ketamine) are off-label and are marked as such.

Contents

Applied clinical examples — 28 October 2026

These examples use a consistent educational format and source documentation. They do not certify clinical correctness, guideline compliance or patient-care suitability.

Evidence boundaries

  • Opioid-sparing and opioid-free anesthesia are different concepts. Avoiding intraoperative opioids does not establish improved overall safety, does not eliminate postoperative opioid needs, and does not justify withholding adequate rescue analgesia. The POFA randomized trial reported important adverse outcomes (hypoxemia, bradycardia) with its dexmedetomidine-based regimen. It cannot be reduced to a universal advantage for either strategy.
  • No universal first-, second- or third-line order. The three approaches are numbered for reference only.
  • IV lidocaine and local-anesthetic blocks or infiltration are not interchangeable, and they are not automatically safe to combine after a total-dose calculation. The 2021 international consensus advises against IV lidocaine concurrently with other local-anesthetic interventions, with a separation interval (S1). The modules follow this.
  • Fixed home-care, drain and follow-up timings are not given. Those instructions come from the treating surgeon.

See PUBLICATION_REVIEW.md for the remaining review requirements, including Git history.

Author: Collin B. George, pre-medical student. Independent educational portfolio; no institutional endorsement is claimed.

License: CC BY 4.0, as stated in LICENSE. This grants rights in the author's original content only; third-party works retain their own terms. A copyright license is not clinical approval.

Key sources: IV lidocaine consensus (Foo 2021); POFA trial (Beloeil 2021); 2026 ASA local/regional analgesia guideline (Joshi 2026). Full list: 06 and DOSING_SOURCES.md.

Source and scope

Published from Breast-Reconstruction-Anesthesia-Protocol/README.md at revision 57ae9ea06e79. Full source text is retained; HTML presentation does not establish independent clinical review. The repository name retains Protocol; the revised material is educational discussion.