What is 'Colorectal fistula'? What's involved with the 'Colorectal fistula' surgery?

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I am working on a careplan for nursing school, and I have to write one on one of my patients who had a colorectal fistual surgery. I can't find anything on what a colorectal fistula is and how they do that surgery?? I failed my first careplan, I need to pass 2 of them and I have 3 weeks! I am stuck! Can you help?

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Try anal fistula. You should be able to find allot of material on this problem. The cause is usually an abscess and I think you will be able to ID some priority Nursing Dx's and create plan of care without too much trouble.

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Specializes in med/surg/ortho.

Are you confusing a fistula with an a/v fistula? One is an accident and one is surgically placed:) A fistula is basically any unnautural opening between 2 cavities or organs in the body. For example a rectal/lady partsl fistula is just that, an unnautural opening between the rectum and the lady parts, (can be caused by traumatic childbirth, other trauma, among other things..)allowing feces to leak from the lady parts. I think an anal fistula is usually due to an abcess that kind of tunnels..know what I mean? I think its a gland or something right inside the orifice that is usually the culprit. Hope this helps!

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Specializes in med/surg, telemetry, IV therapy, mgmt.

very interesting question. this sent me to my coding books because if that is the way the doctor has written the diagnosis, a coder is going to have to put a medical diagnosis code on it at some point. and, there is no listing for a colorectal fistula in my books! however, since you mention in your other post the word "vesicle", it makes me think of the urinary bladder. vesicle is another medical term for the urinary bladder. with that information i went back to my code books and there is a procedure and diagnosis for this. my procedure book lists this as a "closure of rectovesical fistula". the description of the procedure is "the physician closes a connection between the rectum and the bladder (rectovesical fistula). the physician makes an abdominal incision. the signoid colon and rectum are mobilized and the connection between the rectum and bladder is identified and divided. the fistulous openings in the rectum and bladder are debrided and closed with sutures." (coder's desk reference 2002, 7th edition, by ingenix inc., page 522) my books also indicate that sometimes a colostomy is done along with this procedure as a temporary measure until the surgery is healed. is this by any chance a baby? the reason i ask is because all the information i'm finding on the internet for a rectovesical fistula is on pediatric resources and one cancer site. the surgery, however is listed in my coding book under rectal surgeries. on the internet it is listed under urology procedures. did you, by any chance, happen to read the surgical report? was it in the chart?

i see that you are a new poster on allnurses. there are a couple of threads with information on writing care plans. i also answer a lot of questions on care plan writing. if there is something i can help you with, please ask.

welcome to allnurses! :welcome:

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