Free reference
Medical & Surgical Procedure Lookup.
When your patient is going for — or just came back from — a procedure you want to understand fast. This covers the medical & surgical procedures patients undergo (cardiac cath, EGD, colonoscopy, ex-lap with lysis of adhesions, CABG, TAVR, and more): what each one actually is in plain English, the nursing considerations before and after, and the complications to watch for. Looking for hands-on nurse skills (Foley, IV start, trach care)? Those live in the Skills Lookup. (An AI assist for anything outside this list arrives with Pro accounts.) Always follow your facility's policy and your provider's orders.
Scope & safety: This is a general, educational overview of medical and surgical procedures and the typical nursing considerations around them — it is not a procedural how-to (these procedures are performed by physicians/advanced providers), and it omits doses and facility-specific protocol details. Steps, pre-op orders, activity restrictions, and post-op protocols vary by surgeon and institution — always follow your facility's policy and your provider's orders. BrainSheets is not a clinical decision-support device.
Core reference library
- Hinkle JL, Cheever KH, Overbaugh KJ. Brunner & Suddarth's Textbook of Medical-Surgical Nursing. 15th ed. Wolters Kluwer; 2022. (Peri-operative and procedure-specific nursing care.)
- Ignatavicius DD, Workman ML, Rebar CR. Medical-Surgical Nursing: Concepts for Interprofessional Collaborative Care. 10th ed. Elsevier; 2021.
- Society-specific guidelines cited per procedure (e.g., ACC/AHA for cardiac procedures; ASGE for endoscopy; AASLD; AAOS; ACOG; ACR contrast/MR safety; KDOQI/KDIGO; AACN Procedure Manual 7e).
- AABB Standards for Blood Banks and Transfusion Services; The Joint Commission patient-identification standards.
Each procedure card cites its specific source(s).