Perioperative medicine is a collaborative, evidence-based practice that has emerged as a subspecialty within Anesthesiology. The perioperative medicine pathway begins at the moment that the patient and physician(s) decide on surgery and ends when the patient makes a full recovery and returns to baseline function. The goal is to ensure optimal patient outcomes by  identifying (risk stratification) and communicating risks to the surgical patient before the surgery, making recommendations about anesthetic management during the surgery and potentially increasing monitoring after the surgery. It is most applicable to high-risk patients undergoing major surgery, and it considers the implications of the stress of a major surgery on long-term diseases such as diabetes or chronic kidney disease.