A series of lectures introduces fundamental principles of perioperative medicine, procedure-oriented patient evaluations, preoperative assessment, prevention of post-operative complications, surgical instrumentation, operative techniques, anesthesia, pre- and post-operative management of patients, post-operative complications, comorbid states, and documentation. The history of the physician assistant in surgery, including surgical reimbursement issues will be discussed. Selected topics will include the most commonly performed surgical procedures as well as issues relevant to various surgical subspecialties.