Words to Avoid During Wide-awake Local Anesthesia No Tourniquet Surgery to Enhance Patient Experience
Bibliographic record
Abstract
In the evolving landscape of ambulatory surgery, wide-awake local anesthesia no tourniquet (WALANT) surgery has emerged as a preferred approach due to its efficacy, cost-effectiveness, and patient satisfaction. This paradigm shift places the patient at the center of intraoperative communication, requiring a significant change in the dialogue within the operating room (OR). Traditional conversations, which often exclude the unconscious patient, must evolve to accommodate and prioritize the psychological comfort of the conscious patient. This article examines the impact of language, tone, and conversation content on the patient experience during WALANT. We propose a communication framework that emphasizes empathy, reassurance, and patient inclusion to reduce anxiety and increase patient compliance. By analyzing common OR dialogues and their potential impact on awake patients, we identify specific phrases and words that may exacerbate patient stress or discomfort. Alternatives are suggested to foster a more positive and inclusive environment. Our recommendations are based on extensive clinical experience and supported by relevant literature, highlighting the critical role of mindful communication in improving clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction in WALANT.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".