About prehabforsurgery.com
What prehabforsurgery.com is
prehabforsurgery.com is a free, ad-free patient information site offering evidence-based practical guides for people preparing for hepatobiliary (HPB) and pancreatic surgery. Every guide is written and reviewed by a consultant HPB surgeon. It is built for patients, families, and the primary care teams who support them.
Why this site exists
If you have just been told you need surgery for a problem with your pancreas, liver, or bile ducts, the information available to you is typically one of two things: clinical (written for doctors, dense, often inaccessible) or generic (written by content teams without specialist clinical input, often shallow, occasionally misleading). Neither serves the patient well.
What is missing – and what this site exists to provide – is the kind of practical, evidence-based preparation guidance that a consultant HPB surgeon would actually give a patient if there was time in a clinic appointment to cover everything properly. There is rarely time in clinic for everything. So this site exists.
What “prehab” means
Prehabilitation – prehab – is the structured preparation of a patient’s physical, nutritional and psychological state in the weeks before major surgery. The evidence base for prehab as a clinical intervention has grown substantially since the early 2010s. Well-designed studies show it can shorten hospital stay, reduce post-operative complications, and accelerate return to baseline function for patients undergoing major abdominal surgery.
Who writes the content
The site is written and reviewed by:
Mr Tom Gallagher Consultant Hepatobiliary & Pancreatic Surgeon St Vincent’s University Hospital, Dublin National Clinical Lead, Pancreas Cancer Surgery (Ireland) Associate Professor of Surgery, University College Dublin and Executive Council Member of the European-African Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary Association
Mr. Gallagher operates on pancreatic and hepatobiliary patients every week. He sees the same questions, anxieties, and information gaps in his clinic repeatedly. This site is an attempt to address those gaps at scale.
How content is produced
Every article on this site follows the same editorial standard:
- Written from current clinical practice and experience
- Cross-referenced against international guidelines (NICE, ERAS Society, AHPBA, ESMO, NCCN, BSG, ESPEN, and others as relevant to the topic)
- Updated when guidelines change
- Reviewed for clarity where possible by patients and family members
The named-reviewer byline at the top of each article shows who reviewed the content and when it was last updated. References for the underlying evidence are provided at the foot of each article so you can look them up yourself if you want to.
What this site is not
This site provides general information. It is not a substitute for advice from your own clinical team. The guides here are starting points for the conversations you should have with your surgeon, oncologist, dietitian, GP, or whoever else is involved in your care. Your team’s advice for your particular situation always takes precedence over anything written here.
The site does not accept advertising, sponsorship, or commercial product placement. It is free to use because that is the right model for clinical information.
A note on independence
The publisher receives no payment from device manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, or hospital systems for the content on this site. Where content reflects guidance from a professional society or evidence-based protocol, the source is cited directly.
A note on geography
The site is written for an English-speaking audience internationally. Specific guidance on healthcare-system pathways is general; readers should always verify with their own local surgical team and primary care physician.