Clinical Cases of the Month are narrative case studies of actual cases from the author’s experience, written in a format designed to educate medial professionals. The case studies were originally written by Dr. Novak for his Deputy Chief’s Column in The Gas Pipeline, a publication of the Stanford Department of Anesthesia. Although the case studies are written in medical parlance, lay readers will glean insights into what anesthesiologists are doing, thinking, worrying about, and acting on during intriguing and challenging surgical dilemmas.
At the university hospital where I work, many residents wear hats identifying their name and their specialty, but at the private surgery centers where…
Anesthesiologists attend to patients of all ages, from neonates to centenarians. As individuals live longer, there’s been an inevitable increase in geriatric surgery and…
The doses of anesthesia induction drugs matter. In the Methods section for the Anesthesiology study, the anesthetic inductions were described as a combination of…
A cognitive aid is defined a “structured pieces of information designed to enhance cognition and adherence to medical best practices.” The Stanford Emergency Manual is a…
Intraoperative bradycardia (heart rate less than 60 beats per minute) is a common but sometimes dire occurrence in anesthesia care. We’ll look at four…
Stories about medicine provide insights into the human condition. The 10 best medical movies of all time discussed below include four true narratives and…
Anesthesiologists watch vital sign monitors continuously in the operating room every day, and have more experience following vital sign abnormalities minute-to-minute than other physicians.…
In Episode 12 of Season 1, The Pitt’s writers do a major disservice to the anesthesia profession when they depict their star physician, Dr.…
Who is the Captain of the Ship in the operating room, the surgeon or the anesthesiologist? The Captain of the Ship doctrine was a…
On January 30, 2025, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new pain pill named suzetrigine (Journavx), a non-opioid analgesic, to be marketed…
I was providing a general anesthetic to a patient for bilateral blepharoplasties (eyelid lifts) in a plastic surgery center operating room recently, and I…
The Ten Commandments in the Old Testament of the Bible described a path toward a proper life. In anesthesia, I see commandments as guidelines for…