The handover
Patient, procedure, anaesthetic technique, airway and any difficulty, drugs given with times, fluids and losses, analgesic plan, antiemetic plan, and what specifically to watch for. A structured handover takes ninety seconds and prevents most of what goes wrong afterwards.
Pain, treated multimodally
Paracetamol and a non-steroidal where they are safe, a regional block where one fits, and opioid titrated to effect on top. Opioid alone is the least effective and most side-effect heavy way to treat post-operative pain, and it remains the most common.
Nausea, prevented rather than treated
The risk factors are female sex, non-smoker, previous nausea or motion sickness, and post-operative opioids. Each one raises the probability meaningfully, and the answer is combination prophylaxis with drugs from different classes plus an opioid-sparing plan.
The first-hour emergencies
Airway obstruction, hypoxia, hypoventilation from residual opioid or paralysis, hypotension from bleeding or spinal block, and delirium in the elderly. The recovery nurse who calls early is doing the job correctly; the danger is a patient who is quietly hypoventilating behind a curtain.