During the preoperative visit, as an anesthesiologist, I ask the patient, “Do you have any questions?” Eighty percent of patients ask a question about timing, “How long will the surgery take?” “When should I go for surgery?” . When they are sent out of the operating room, the family always asks, “What took you so long?” Other family members would also ask, “My family has been in there for a long time, why hasn’t he come out yet?” In this issue, let’s talk about where does the time go on the day of surgery? Why do you need to be picked up early to go into the operating room? If it’s the first surgery on the schedule, someone will pick you up from the ward in the morning and bring you to the operating room. If it is not the first surgery, you will be picked up only when the previous surgery is almost finished. While you are in the ward, you can spend time talking to your family, making phone calls, and surfing on WeChat. When you enter the operating room area, you will not necessarily be pushed into the operating room right away, but will be transitioned in the waiting area first. What do the doctors do before you go into the operating room? Before the first surgery of the day, the anesthesiologist has to thoroughly check the anesthesia equipment and prepare the anesthesia items, and the operating room nurses have to prepare many surgical instruments and supplies, all of which take time. For the next surgery, you will not be admitted to the operating room until the previous surgery has been completed and the housekeeping staff has cleaned up the blood stains from the previous patient in the operating room. Waiting in the waiting area of the operating room can be boring, family members are not allowed in, and cell phones are not allowed. Sometimes the hospital will play soothing music for you and you can chat with the patients next to you. If you are interested, you may want to observe the operating room environment, which is an amazing place. The patient waiting room is a warm haven to help you prepare for surgery. When you enter the operating room, the anesthesiologist and the operating room nurse will first connect you to the monitor and infuse fluids, and the patient under general anesthesia can sleep. After the anesthesia is OK, the surgeon takes the stage and does the surgery with a click-click-click. Why do you have to go to the recovery room and can’t just go back to your room? When the surgery is over, the anesthesiologist will let you wake up again. It takes time for the anesthesia to wake up, and it takes time for the concentration of the anesthesia drugs in your body to drop. The 15 minutes after waking up from anesthesia can easily lead to accidents, so you will be sent to the anesthesia recovery room for observation. In the recovery room, the doctor and nurses will continue to monitor your blood pressure, heart rate and oxygen. This is also where post-operative analgesia begins. If you experience moderate or even severe pain, you will be given additional analgesic medication, and then you will be observed for a further period of time before you are safely transported out of the operating room and back to your room. Anesthesia recovery room, your safety guarantee for post-operative awakening: So, sometimes a surgery that the surgeon says will take an hour may take 2 to 3 hours from the time you are sent into the operating room to the time you are sent out of the operating room. The surgery, is the core step during this time. In order to ensure the safety of your life and the smooth operation, in addition to the team of surgeons, the medical and nursing staffs in various positions in the anesthesia department of the operating room, as well as the support staffs in the field, housekeeping, and equipment maintenance, all work with dedication. We are very sorry for the time you and your family had to wait. We hope you and your family can understand and appreciate that we are still working when you can’t see us, and that we have not stopped.