The study examined the preoperative instruction given to clients in a private orthopedic postoperative recall practice. The study further examined what factors these postoperative clients felt were important and/or deleted preoperatively.Findings showed that eighty-eight per cent of the participants knew their diagnosis and felt that their operation was fully explained to them Ninety-two percent claimed to have adequate pain relief. Of the twenty-five participants in this study, twenty-one had no answers to questions now that they did not already have preoperatively.The assumption that the clients did not have adequate preoperative instruction to prepare them well for the postoperative period was not strongly supported.This study suggests there may have been a reluctance on the part of the clients to be critical of the care given by their surgeon under whose care they remained at the time of the interviews.