Portrait of a doctor listening to a patient's heartbeat

This guide is for patients undergoing cardiac surgery and for their families and caregivers.

It is designed to help you understand each step of your surgical journey from pre-surgery to surgery, recovery, and rehabilitation, as well as the important role you play in your recovery.

How to use this patient guide

Click on the sections below to navigate through the patient’s journey through cardiac surgery. Remember that depending on your surgery type, not all the content may apply to you. 

If you have questions not answered in this guide, please direct them to your doctor, nurse or any member of your health-care team. 

Services for patients, families and caregivers.

We want to make sure your time with us is as easy and worry-free as possible. If you or your loved ones are in the hospital for surgery, we have different services available to help you along the way. These can include language interpretation, help with health information and navigation, support from Indigenous Patient Navigators, and care from spiritual and cultural advisors from different faiths.

Patient and caregiver services

Parking, accommodation and services near VGH

Looking for information on how to get to Vancouver General Hospital? Check out our location page for all the details on parking, transit options, nearby accommodations, and services.

Vancouver General Hospital

Resources

    • Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) for Robotically-Assisted Minimally Invasive Direct Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery

    • Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) for Minimally Invasive Mitral Valve Surgery

Help us improve! Share your feedback on the digital patient guide to cardiac surgery

If you or a loved one is a cardiac surgery patient, we want to hear from you! We value your feedback as it is important to improve our content and resources. Did you find the guide helpful? Do you have suggestions or ideas or want to share your overall experience? Please take a few minutes to fill out our survey and help us improve our guide.

Learn more about your surgery

Surgery guides

Tools and resources for patients, families and caregivers to better understand their treatments and learn what to expect while receiving care.

Prepare for your hospital stay

When planning for an overnight visit to the hospital, it's important to be prepared to make your stay as comfortable as possible.

Visitor information

Keeping patients connected to their loved ones is important to their comfort and recovery process, which is why we offer a number of visitor services and resources.