Tag anesthesiologist

INCREASED DOLLAR COSTS ASSOCIATED WITH DIFFICULT INTUBATION

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
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The safe management of a difficult airway is the most important single skill for an anesthesiologist. Every critically ill patient is managed by the priority of A – B – C, or Airway – Breathing – Circulation. Just as the initial most important factors in real estate are location, location, location, the three initial important factors in a critically ill patient are airway, airway, airway. I’ve written previously on the American Society of Anesthesiologists 2022 modifications to their Difficult Airway Algorithm, on the importance of expert airway management, and on advice for avoiding lost airway lawsuits, but I haven’t discussed the economic consequences of each difficult airway patient.

A 2021 publication, “Factors and Economic Outcomes Associated with Documented Difficult Intubation in the United States,”  by Moucharite et al, studied the economic cost of a difficult intubation in hospitalized patients. Using data from the Premier Healthcare Database, the study looked at adult patients with inpatient surgical admissions during 2016, 2017, and 2018. Patients in the difficult intubation group had average inpatient costs $14,468 higher than patients without difficult intubations. Patients in the difficult intubation group had average ICU (intensive care unit) costs $4,029 higher than patients without difficult intubations. For difficult intubation patients the mean hospital length of stay was 3.8 days longer and ICU length of stay was 2.0 days longer. All data were significant to a p value of < 0.0001.

In California where I practice, these numbers would be significantly higher. The mean cost of a single hospital day in California is $4181, and the mean cost of an ICU day is significantly higher.

The Moucharite study was a large retrospective review of 2,233,751 cases from hospitals in all parts of the United States. With 609 cases in the difficult intubation group and 2,233,142 cases in the non-difficult intubation group, the incidence of difficult intubation was only 0.027%. Difficult intubation patients were more likely be male, black, less than 65 years old, and have urgent or emergent admissions, obesity, cancer, congestive heart failure, COPD, renal disease, and had been treated in a teaching hospital or a hospital of 500 beds or more.

Moucharite wrote, “Difficult intubation has been associated with a variety of complications including oxygen desaturation, hypertension, dental damage, admission to the intensive care unit, and complications at extubation, as well as arrhythmias, bronchospasm, airway trauma, CICV (can’t intubate, can’t ventilate), and sequela of hypoxia (cardiac arrest, brain damage, and death). This was consistent with a 2011 study of difficult airways from the British Journal of Anesthesia which stated, “Obesity markedly increases risk of airway complications. Pulmonary aspiration remains the leading cause of airway-related anesthetic deaths. . . . Unrecognized esophageal intubation is not of only historical interest and is entirely avoidable. . . . prediction scores are rather poor, so many failures are unanticipated . . . the first-pass success rate of intubation in the operating room ranges from only 63% to 85% . . . and up to 93% of difficult intubations are unanticipated.”

The Moucharite study has limitations. It’s a retrospective study of economic Big Data, and there is no direct evidence for a cause-and-effect relationship between a difficult intubation and a more costly hospitalization. The study does not include data from electronic medical records, so we have no knowledge on all the comorbidities and complications of the difficult intubation patients. The study included only hospitalized patients, even though seventy percent of surgical procedures in the United States take place in ambulatory surgery centers and offices outside of hospitals. The reported incidence of difficult intubation  is estimated to be 1.5–8.5% of the general population, but in  the Moucharite study only 0.027% of patients were found to have difficult intubation. This discrepancy implies some patients in the Moucharite study were difficult intubations but may have been assigned to the non-difficult intubation cohort.

Note that all three authors of the Moucharite study are employees of Medtronic, a medical device company which manufactures the McGrath videolaryngoscope.

McGRATH VIDEOLARYNGOSCOPE

I expect Medtronic could cite the Moucharite study as evidence that a videolaryngoscope (such as a McGrath) is a crucial piece of equipment for avoiding expensive difficult intubation outcomes. Moucharite wrote that there is, “a need for clinicians who perform tracheal intubations to carefully consider options . . . several studies demonstrated the benefits of videolaryngoscopy [emphasis added] including a shorter time required for tracheal intubation, a higher rate of successful intubations.”

For the first look when intubating a patient, most anesthesia providers still use a traditional direct laryngoscope:

MAC 3 DIRECT LARYNGOSCOPE

 

If the direct laryngoscope does not enable a successful intubation, a reasonable second step is to switch to a videolaryngoscope such as the GlideScope, manufactured by Verathon:

GLIDESCOPE

or the C-MAC, manufactured by Karl Storz:

C-MAC

 

or the McGrath, manufactured by Medtronic:

McGRATH VIDEOLARYNGOSCOPE

 

In my experience the larger 6.4-inch screen on a GlideScope or the 5.9-inch screen on a C-MAC makes them superior videolaryngoscopes to the McGrath with its diminutive 2.5-inch screen.

Why use a direct laryngoscope in the initial intubation attempt rather than use a videolaryngoscope? A direct laryngoscope costs less than a videolaryngoscope. Most direct laryngoscopes blades are washed and reused. Videolaryngoscopes require a new disposable sleeve or blade for every case. In facilities with budget concerns, replacing all traditional laryngoscopes with videolaryngoscopes would be expensive. A McGrath costs about $2500 on eBay, and each new nonreusable blade cover costs about $10. A new GlideScope was $12,745 in 2017. A reconditioned GlideScope costs between $1000 and $10,000 on eBay, and each new nonreusable blade costs $38.

A 2022 study comparing direct laryngoscopy to videolaryngoscopy concluded that “videolaryngoscopy likely provides a safer risk profile compared to direct laryngoscopy for all adults undergoing tracheal intubation.” A recent review  stated that, “Though videolaryngoscopes have been recommended for use at first attempt of intubation by most international airway guidelines, the universal use of videolaryngoscopes is still facing hurdles because of limited training opportunities, availability and high cost.”

Should a videolaryngoscope replace a direct laryngoscope for all initial intubation attempts? I don’t think so. The majority of intubations are straightforward and are successful with a Miller 2 or a Mac 3 direct laryngoscope. Should a videolaryngoscope be available as a back-up piece of equipment for every intubation? Absolutely. The ASA Difficult Airway Algorithm includes the possible use of a videoscope, and states,
“Consider the relative merits and feasibility of basic management choices:  (consider) video-assisted laryngoscopy as an initial approach to intubation.” An anesthesia provider who initiates general anesthesia and intubation without an immediately available videolaryngoscope is in danger of not being able to follow the algorithm. The hospital I work in is stocked with either the GlideScope and the C-MAC both readily available for difficult intubations. The availability of a videolaryngoscope for either a first attempt or for backup attempts to intubate a difficult airway patient is vital.

Difficult airway cases can lead to malpractice claims. A 2009 study published in Anesthesiology showed that 2.3% of 2,211 anesthesia-related deaths in the United States from 1999-2005 were attributable to difficult intubation and failed intubation.  A 2019 study from the Anesthesia Closed Claims Project database showed that the 102 difficult intubation closed malpractice claims from 2000 to 2012 included sicker patients (n = 78 of 102), emergency procedures (n = 37 of 102), and non-perioperative locations (n = 23 of 102).  Preoperative predictors of difficult tracheal intubation were present in only 76% of the patients. Inappropriate airway management occurred in 71 patients. A “can’t intubate, can’t oxygenate” emergency occurred in 80 of the 102 claims, with a delayed surgical airway occurring in 39% of those cases. The authors wrote, “outcomes remained poor in recent malpractice claims related to difficult tracheal intubation. Inadequate airway planning and judgment errors were contributors to patient harm.”

In conclusion: Difficult intubations are a major anesthesia problem, because of: 1) the difficulty in identifying difficult intubation patients prospectively, 2) the medical comorbidities that occur with difficult airway patients, 3) the medical complications that can occur if difficult airways are mismanaged, 4) the dollar cost of increased healthcare utilization as reported in the Moucharite study, and 5) the potential medical-legal liability risk with each difficult intubation.

SuperMorbidly Obese Patient with a Difficult Airway

 

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The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include: How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia? Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia? Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia? What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications? How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century? Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia? What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include: 10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6? 12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 170/99? Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

READ ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM

PHYSICIAN TRAINING: TWO FORKS IN THE ROAD

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

You’re in the middle of your medical school years, and wondering what specialty to pursue. There are two major forks in the road when trying to choose the career that suits your emotional make-up and work ethic. The sooner you understand these two forks in the road, the better off you’ll be. 

CLINIC DOCTOR OR ACUTE CARE DOCTOR?

The first major fork in the road is whether you’re best suited for a career as a clinic doctor or as an acute care doctor. The main specialties for clinic doctors are internal medicine, family practice, pediatrics, and psychiatry. The main specialties for acute care doctors are surgery, anesthesiology, emergency medicine, and obstetrics-gynecology.

Internal medicine and pediatrics include subspecialties. The subspecialties of endocrinology, oncology, nephrology (kidney specialist), and allergy-immunology are primarily clinic doctors. Cardiologists are hybrid clinic/acute care doctors who must first complete a residency in internal medicine, and then subspecialize with 3-4 additional years of fellowship training. Pulmonologists (lung specialists) are also hybrid clinic/acute care doctors who must first complete a residency in internal medicine, and then subspecialize with 2 additional years of fellowship training.

Pursue a career as a clinic doctor if you enjoy sitting in a room, listening to patients and talking to patients. Most clinic doctors rarely place a tube or a needle into a patient after their residency training is completed. Most clinic doctors work daytime hours, but have weekend call and night call, which may include phone consultations or emergency room visits. Clinic doctors see multiple patients per day, perhaps 4-8 patients per day for psychiatrists, and up to 30 patients or more for some specialists such as allergists.

Pursue a career as an acute care doctor if you prefer adrenaline-charged arenas such as the operating room, the intensive care unit, the labor and delivery suite, or the emergency room. The pace will be much faster than in a clinic, and the stress level will be higher. You’ll perform surgeries, deliver babies, or run trauma Code Blues. If you become an anesthesiologist, you’ll routinely put your patients into pharmaceutical comas and then reverse that status.

These are some of the significant differences between the clinic path and the acute care path:

  1. Sudden risks are almost unknown in clinics. In a clinic setting, doctors make diagnoses, order tests, and prescribe oral medications. In an acute care setting, health care interventions involve scalpels, tubes, IVs, intravenous medications, breathing tubes and ventilators. Malpractice events are less likely to occur in clinic settings. It’s difficult to harm a patient in a clinic. Clinic errors may involve the failure to make the correct diagnosis or the failure to follow up on the result of an important test. Acute care errors can include failure to manage the A-B-Cs of airway, breathing, and circulation safely.
  2. Income differences. Physicians who do procedures, and who incur the risks of procedures gone wrong, earn more money. Physicians who staff clinics usually earn less. This fact may be concealed from medical students. Once students become aware of the income differences, the invisible hand of capitalism tends to drive them into the acute care specialties which are higher paying. The financial numbers are pertinent, because the median debt for an American medical school graduate was $200,000 in 2019. The average four-year cost for a public medical school education was $250,222, and the average four-year cost for a private medical school education was $330,180.  Medical school graduates need to earn a significant income to repay their student loans.
  3. Long-term relationships with patients. Primary care clinic doctors often attend to the same patients for decades, and form long-term cordial relationships with their patients. Acute care doctors typically see a patient once, for a surgery, an anesthetic, a childbirth, or an emergency room visit. Acute care doctors rarely develop lasting interactions with any of their patients. Clinic doctors may receive holiday cards or presents from their patients; acute care doctors will not.
  4. Lifestyle differences. Clinic doctors mainly work daytime hours, although they may receive afterhours phone calls regarding patient health problems. If one of their patients becomes acutely ill, a primary care doctor may see that patient in the emergency room. Some acute care specialists work as shift labor, especially emergency room doctors, anesthesiologists, or hospitalists. Acute care doctors may also have schedules in which they can take blocks of weeks or even months off at a time, giving them the option to pursue longer vacations or travel. Primary care doctors are rarely able to take long blocks of time away from their patients.

ACADEMIC DOCTOR OR COMMUNITY DOCTOR?

A second fork in the road during physician training is the choice whether to become an academic physician or a community physician. An academic physician is a faculty member at a medical school. Their job description includes teaching younger doctors and mentoring younger doctors in patient care. Academic physicians work in university hospitals, Veterans Administration (VA) hospitals, and county hospitals—any setting where medical students and resident physicians are training. Ambitious medical students often plan to become academic physicians, because they admire the academic professors who are training them. Ambitious medical students may profess that they want to become academic professors, because it may appear this career path is what the finest university training programs are looking for. The gambit seems to look like this: if you want to be admitted to a famous university residency program, tell them you want to be a famous professor just like the individual who is interviewing you for that program. I can only advise you to tell the truth about your career ambitions.

Most physicians eventually drift away from academic intentions, and become community physicians. Community physicians are individuals who work at your local clinic, your local hospital, or your local health maintenance organization. A 2017 article stated that “Although 45 percent of graduating medical students aspire to work in an academic setting, only about 16 percent will do so. Of those who do work in academic settings, up to 38 percent will leave academia within 10 years.” 

These are some of the significant differences between the between the academic path and the community path:

  1. Income. Academic physicians usually earn less money than community physicians. Academics spend part of their time teaching young doctors, instead of seeing additional patients. Academics may also spend part of their time doing laboratory science or clinical studies, instead of seeing additional patients. Academic departments also typically pay a “Dean’s tax” to the medical school dean, as part of their agreement within the medical school. 
  2. Housestaff back-up. Academic physicians have a team of housestaff physicians—interns, residents, and fellows—to do many of the mundane tasks of patient care for them. These housestaff physicians may sleep in the hospital and handle middle-of-the night issues while the academic faculty member sleeps at home. This is a significant benefit. I can attest that as you age, you’ll have less and less desire to get out of bed to handle urgent medical issues. Community physicians must function like interns. They set up call schedules to share night duty with other community physicians in the same specialty, but if there’s an issue at night when you’re on call, you will have to drive to the hospital to handle it.
  3. Tenure for professors. If academic professors have a productive career of publishing significant research, their university may award them with tenure, defined as lifetime job security at that university. Tenure guarantees a distinguished professor academic freedom and freedom of speech by protecting him or her from being fired no matter how controversial or nontraditional their research, publications, or ideas are. This benefit is usually only an option for basic science research doctors who are specifically hired to “tenure-track” appointments.

A THIRD FORK:

A small minority of medical school graduates shun either academic or community practice, and instead take their MD degree and go directly to work in industry either as a researcher at a medical company, or a consultant in a medical industry. Consider this path if you believe you’re not suited to taking care of patients.

My Journey:

I had personal experience with each of these forks in my medical education road. During medical school I was having a difficult time deciding between surgery and internal medicine. During my final summer quarter break, I returned to my hometown and joined the local general surgeon to observe him performing a gall bladder surgery. After the procedure, I questioned him about his satisfaction with his career in general surgery. He told me, “I’m very happy with general surgery, but if I had to do the 7-year residency over again, I could never do it. It was that difficult.” The look on his face told me what I needed to know, so I opted for a career in internal medicine. I matched at Stanford and began my three-year residency. During my second year, while I was spending my afternoons in the internal medicine clinic, I realized I preferred acute care to clinic care. That same year I’d spent one month in the Stanford intensive care unit (ICU) rotation. The Stanford anesthesia department ran the ICU, and I met multiple faculty and resident anesthesiologists who loved their specialty and were excellent role models. I made an appointment to meet with the ICU physician-in-chief, and told him I wanted to become an ICU specialist like him. He told me, “If you want to be an ICU doctor, I’d advise you to do an anesthesia residency first, because ICU care involves airway-breathing-circulation, and anesthesiologists are the airway experts. But once you finish your anesthesia residency, you’ll never come back to see me, because you’ll love anesthesia so much you’ll probably just do anesthesiology as a career.” I followed his advice. I applied to anesthesia residencies, and was eventually accepted to begin my anesthesia training, albeit three years into the future.

During those three years, I finished my internal medicine training. Then I hovered at the fork in the road between academic and community medicine during my one-year gap between my internal medicine and anesthesia residencies. The Stanford Department of Internal Medicine hired me for a twelve-month position as a faculty member in the emergency room. My role was to be the attending in the ER from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and to give a lecture to the residents each morning at 8 a.m. I was thrilled to be on the faculty at Stanford at the young age of 29. I discovered during that year that if you’re an academic doctor/clinician/educator who doesn’t do research, that you have minimal respect within your department. That same year I met many community doctors on their ER duty who were very happy with their work. My conclusion from my one-year academic appointment was that if you enjoyed clinical care, then it was better to just graduate from your training program and go out there and do clinical care in the community. If I’d had the skillset to become a tenure-track academic professor, perhaps I would have pursued a university career, but I did not.

THE BIG PICTURE:

There is tremendous competition to become a physician. Applications to medical school are at an all time high. According to the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC), applications increased 18% from 2020 to 2021. Stanford University School of Medicine received 11,000 applications for an admission class of 90 spots.

It’s an honorable and a wonderful career to heal and take care of sick and suffering as a medical doctor. If you’re admitted to an American medical school, you’ll have the choice whether to become a primary care doctor or an acute care doctor. You’ll have the choice to become an academic physician or a community physician. But you’ll have made the most important choice already—to become a medical doctor in the first place. 

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The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:
How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?
Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?
Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?
What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?
How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?
Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?
What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:
10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia
Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?
12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training
Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 170/99?
Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams
What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

READ ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM.

13 MAJOR CHANGES IN ANESTHESIOLOGY IN THE LAST TEN YEARS

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 2 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Let’s look at 13 major changes in the last ten years of anesthesiology, and give a letter grade to mark the significance of each advance:

final_ten_year_graphic_gif

 

SUGAMMADEX – The long awaited reversal agent for neuromuscular paralysis reached the market in 2016, and by my review, the drug is wonderful. I’ve found sugammadex to reverse rocuronium paralysis in less than a minute in every patient who has at least one twitch from a nerve stimulator. The dose is expensive at about $100 per patient, but at this time that’s cheaper than the acquisition costs for neostigmine + glycopyrrolate. The acquisition cost of neostigmine + glycopyrrolate at our facilities exceeds $100, and this combination of drugs can take up to 9 minutes to reverse rocuronium paralysis. Sugammadex reversal can make the duration of a rocuronium motor block almost as short acting as a succinylcholine motor block, and sugammadex can also eliminate complications in the Post Anesthesia Care Unit due to residual postoperative muscle paralysis. Grade = A.

 

SHORTAGES OF GENERIC INTRAVENOUS DRUGS – Over the last five years we’ve seen unexpected shortages of fentanyl, morphine, propofol, ephedrine, neostigmine, glycopyrrolate, meperidine, and atropine, to name a few. These are generic drugs that formerly cost pennies per ampoule. In the current marketplace, generic manufacturers have limited the supplies and elevated the prices of these medications to exorbitant levels. I wish I’d had the foresight and the money ten years ago to invest in a factory that produced generic anesthetic drugs. Grade = F.

 

THE PERIOPERATIVE SURGICAL HOME – The American Society of Anesthesiologists has been pushing this excellent concept for years now—the idea being that a team of physician anesthesiologists will manage all perioperative medical care from preoperative clinic assessment through discharge, including intraoperative care, postoperative care and pain management in the PACU, the ICU, and the hospital wards. The goal is improved patient care with decreased costs. It’s not clear the idea has widespread traction as of yet, and the concept will always be at odds with the individual aspirations of internal medicine doctors, hospitalists, intensivists, surgeons, and certified nurse anesthetists, all who want to make their own management decisions, and all who desire to be paid for owning those decisions. Grade = B-.

 

MULTIMODAL PAIN MANAGEMENT FOLLOWING TOTAL JOINT REPLACEMENTS – The development of pain management protocols which include neuroaxial blocks, regional anesthetic blocks, local anesthetic infiltration by surgeons, oral and intravenous pain medications, have advanced the science of pain relief for total knee and total hip replacements. The cooperation between surgeons, anesthesiologists, and internal medicine specialists to develop the protocols has been outstanding, the standardized checklist care has been well accepted, and patients are benefiting. Grade = A.

 

ULTRASOUND GUIDED REGIONAL ANESTHESIA – Regional anesthetic blocks are not new, but visualizing the nerves via ultrasound is. The practice is becoming widespread, and the analysis of economic and quality data is ongoing. Ultrasound guided regional anesthesia is a major advance for painful orthopedic surgeries, but I worry about overuse of the technique on smaller cases for the economic benefit of the physician wielding the ultrasound probe. A second concern is the additive risk of administrating two anesthetics (regional plus general) to one patient. I’ve reviewed medical records of patients with adverse outcomes related to regional blocks, and I’m concerned ultrasound guided regional anesthesia may be creating a new paradigm of postoperative complications, e.g. prolonged nerve damage or intravascular injection of local anesthetics. In the future I look forward to seeing years of closed claims data regarding this increasing use of regional anesthesia. Grade = B.

 

VIDEOLARYNGOSCOPY – The invention of the GlideScope and its competitors the C-MAC, King Vision, McGrath and Airtraq videolaryngoscopes was a major advance in our ability to intubate patients with difficult airways. My need for fiberoptic intubation has plummeted since videolaryngoscopy became available. I’d recommend that everyone who attempts traditional laryngoscopy for endotracheal intubation have access to a video scope as a backup, should traditional intubation prove difficult. Grade = A.

 

ANESTHESIOLOGIST ASSISTANTS (AAs) – The American Society of Anesthesiologists is championing the idea of training AAs to work with physician anesthesiologists in an anesthesia care team model. A primary reason is to combat the influence and rise in numbers of Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) by inserting AAs as a substitute. Not a bad idea, but like the Perioperative Surgical Home, the concept of AAs is gaining traction slowly, and the penetration of AAs into the marketplace is minimal. To date there are only ten accredited AA education programs in the United States. Grade = B-.

 

CHECKLISTS – We now have pre-incision Time Outs, pre-induction Anesthesia Time Outs, and pre-regional anesthesia Block Time Outs. It’s hard to argue with these checklists. Even if 99.9% of the Time Outs change nothing, if 0.1% of the Time Outs identify a miscommunication or a laterality mistake, they are worth it. Grade = A.

 

ANESTHESIA ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS (EMRs)– The idea is sound. Everything in the modern world is digitalized, so why not medical records? The problem is the current product. There are multiple EMR systems, and the systems cannot communicate with each other. Can you imagine a telephone system where Sprint phones cannot communicate with AT&T phones? The current market leader for hospitals is Epic, a ponderous, expensive system that does little to make the pertinent information easier to find in medical charts. For acute care medicine such as anesthetic emergencies, the medical charting and documentation in Epic gets in the way of hands-on anesthesia care. In the past, when I administered 50 mg of rocuronium, I simply wrote “50” in the appropriate space on a piece of paper. In Epic I have to make at least 4 mouse clicks to do the same thing. This Epic entry cannot be made on a touch screen because the first rocuronium window on the touch screen is a three-millimeter-tall box, too small for a finger touch. I’d like to see Apple or Google develop better EMR software than we have at present. Perhaps the eventual winning product will be voice activated or will involve easy touch screen data entry and data access. And all EMR systems should interact with each other, so patient privacy medical information can be portable. Grade = C-.

 

THE ECONOMICS OF ANESTHESIA – When I began in private practice in 1986, most successful anesthesiologists joined a single-specialty anesthesia group. This group would cover a hospital or several hospitals along with nearby surgery centers and offices. The group would bill for physician services, and insurance companies would reimburse them. Each physician joining the group would endure a one or two-year tryout period, after which he or she became a partner. Incomes were proportional to the number of cases an individual attended to. The models are changing. Smaller anesthesia groups are merging into larger groups, better equipped to negotiate with healthcare insurers and ObamaCare. More and more healthcare systems are employing their own anesthesiologists. In a healthcare system, profits are pooled and shared amongst the varying specialists. This model is not objectionable. Anesthesiologists share the profits with less lucrative specialties such as internal medicine and pediatrics, but the anesthesiologists are assured a steady flow of patients from the primary care physicians and surgeons within the system. The end result is less income than in a single-specialty anesthesia group, but more security. Grade = B.

 

THE SPECTER OF A BAN ON BALANCE BILLING – In a perfect world all physician groups would be contracted with all health insurance companies, at a monetary rate acceptable to both sides. Unfortunately there are insurance company-physician group rifts in which an acceptable rate is not negotiated. In these instances, the physician provider for a given patient may be out of network with the patient’s insurer, not because of provider greed (as portrayed by some politicians and insurers) but because the insurance company did not offer a reasonable contracted rate. Some politicians believe physician out-of-network balance billing should be outlawed. This would give unilateral power to insurance companies. Why would an insurance company offer a reasonable rate to a physician provider group, if the insurance company can pay the physicians a low rate and the new law says the physicians have no alternative but to accept it as payment in full? The no-balance-billing politicians will portray patients as victims, but if they succeed in changing the laws, physicians will become victims. Physicians as well as consumers must unite to defeat this concept. Grade = F.

 

CORPORATE ANESTHESIA – National companies are buying multiple existing anesthesia groups and changing the template of our profession in America. The current physician owners of a practice can sell their group to a publically traded national company for a large upfront payoff. The future salaries of anesthesiologists of that group are then decreased, and the rest of the profit formerly garnered by the physicians goes instead to the bottom line of the national company’s shareholders. If this model becomes widespread, the profession of anesthesiology will morph into a job populated by moderately reimbursed employees. Grade = D.

 

INDEPENDENT PRACTICE FOR CRNAs – Anesthesiology is the practice of medicine. In a two-year training program, an ICU nurse can learn to administer propofol and sevoflurane, and how to intubate most patients, and become a CRNA. It takes a physician anesthesiologist to manage complex preoperative medical problems, intraoperative complications, and postoperative medical complications. I understand rural states such as Montana and the Dakotas cannot recruit enough physician anesthesiologists to hospitals in their smallest towns, but for states like California to legalize independent anesthesia practice for CRNAs is unconscionable. Grade = D.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

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LEARN MORE ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM BY CLICKING ON THE PICTURE BELOW:

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TRENDS FOR THE FUTURE OF ANESTHESIOLOGY

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 21 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
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What can we expect in the next 10 years of anesthesiology? What will be the trends for the future of anesthesiology? I’m writing this in January 2016. God willing, we’ll all be alive and well to reread this in 2026, and find out how many of these predictions about the future of anesthesiology came true.

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I’m writing this from the perspective of a busy clinician who has worked as an anesthesiologist in California in both private practice and at a major university hospital for over 30 years. I see 10 trends for the future of anesthesiology as:

  1. Lower income (as adjusted for inflation). There will be multiple causes for this: a) An aging population, with the significantly lower pay for attending to Medicare patients, b) Obamacare and other governmental payment cuts, c) Bundled insurance payments to hospitals, requiring anesthesiologists to negotiate for every nickel of that payment due to them, and d) Corporate anesthesia (see #9 below).
  2. More care team anesthesia and more Certified Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs). Hospital systems will have increased incentives to perform anesthetics with cheaper labor. Rather than physician anesthesiologists personally performing anesthesia, expect to see CRNAs supervised by physician anesthesiologists in an anesthesia care team, or in some states, CRNAs working alone.
  3. There will be a paucity of new drugs to change the practice of operating room anesthesia. A few years ago I had a conversation with Don Stanski, MD, PhD, former Chairman of Anesthesiology at Stanford and now a leading pharmaceutical company executive, regarding new anesthetic drugs in the pipeline. Dr. Stanski’s reply was something along the line of, “There are almost no new anesthetic drugs in development. The ones we currently have work very well, and the research and development cost in bring an additional idea to market is high. Don’t expect much change in the coming years.” Consider sugammadex, a new drug for the reversal of neuromuscular blockade, recently approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The drug is more effective in reversing a rocuronium or vecuronium block than is neostigmine, but the cost is high. The acquisition cost of the smallest available vial of sugammadex is over $90, far exceeding the cost of neostigmine. In certain instances, faster reversal by sugammadex will be critically important, but for routine cases the cost is prohibitive. This trend of fewer new anesthesia drugs isn’t only a futuristic phenomenon. In my current private practice, I see my colleagues using the same medications that they used 25 years ago: propofol, sevoflurane, rocuronium, fentanyl, and ondansetron.
  4. An aging population, an increased volume of surgery, and an increased demand for anesthesia personnel. As the baby boomers age, there will be an increased number of surgeries on older, sicker patients. Anesthesia personnel will be in great demand.
  5. Anesthesiology will become more and more a shift-work job. A generation ago an anesthesiologist started a case and finished that case. An on-call anesthesiologist came to work at 7 a.m., took 24-hour call, and finished their last case as the sun came up the next morning. Certain instances of this model may persist, but as more anesthesiologist become corporate employees, expect more anesthesia practitioners working 8-hour or 12-hour shifts, just like employees in other jobs.
  6. Increased interest in the specialty of anesthesiology amongst medical students. Although several items on my list may seem discouraging, take heart, because the career of anesthesiology will remain extremely popular. Why? Because the other fields of medicine have problems, too. Bigger problems. Many future doctors will shun the primary care fields of family practice, internal medicine, and pediatrics. The primary care fields offer long days in clinics, dealing with a new patient every 10 – 15 minutes, and they suffer from low pay. Because of the higher reimbursement in procedural specialties, careers in surgery, anesthesia, cardiology, and invasive radiology will always be popular.
  7. Expect improved safety statistics regarding anesthesia mortality and morbidity. Anesthesia has never been safer. See “How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?” Expect further improvements in monitors, protocols, education, and the analysis of Big Data that will make anesthesia safer than ever.
  8. There will still be a non-zero incidence of anesthesia-related fatalities. There will still be disasters, particularly airway disasters. Some anesthesia clinical situations will always remain extremely difficult and challenging, and human error will not be eradicated.
  9. Large national corporations will continue buying up private anesthesia practices, perhaps eliminating the current model in which groups cover one hospital or one city alone. In the last three months, Sheridan, the physician services division of AmSurg, Corp has purchased the 60-physician, 140-anesthetist Northside Anesthesiology Consultants in Atlanta, and the 240-physician Valley Anesthesiologists & Pain Consultants in Phoenix. In these purchases, senior board members and partners receive seven-digit checks to sell their practice, then all physicians in the practice’s future labor for a discounted wage, perhaps as low as 50% of the prior income. If this trend becomes widespread, this subset of the anesthesia workforce will become low paid practitioners, while the purchasing corporations will make significant profits for their stockholders.
  10. Continued fascination with anesthesia practice, a discipline which makes all surgical treatments and cures feasible. Without anesthesia, there can be no major surgical procedures. Medical care without major surgical procedures is unthinkable. Whether as anesthesia providers, as patients requiring surgery, or just as observers of the process, we will all continue to value and marvel at the field of anesthesia.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

LEARN MORE ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM BY CLICKING ON THE PICTURE BELOW:

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ZDoggMD MUSIC VIDEO TRASHES ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

I’m not a fan of the current state of Electronic Health Records (EHR), also known as Electronic Medical Records (EMR). Particularly in acute care, the computer keyboard and screen have no place between an anesthesiologist and his patient, an emergency room physician and his patient, an ICU doctor and his patient, or an ICU nurse and her patient. In a past column I identified the EHR as the most overrated advance affecting anesthesia practice in the past 25 years. ZDoggMD trashes EHR in his powerful and humorous You Tube video An EHR State of Mind, in which he raps about Electronic Health Records to the tune of Jay Z’s and Alicia Key’s hit single An Empire State of Mind.

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ZDoggMD is a former Stanford physician known for his music videos, parodies, and comedy sketches regarding contemporary medical issues and work in the medical field. ZDoggMD is played by Dr. Zubin Damania, CEO and Founder of Las Vegas-based Turntable Health. Dr. Damania attended UC Berkeley in the early 1990s, followed by medical school at UCSF and residency at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Check out his website at http://zdoggmd.com. Links exist to multiple equally funny satiric videos. You’re sure to be entertained.

I agree with him that the current cumbersome EHRs come between doctors and patients during hospital care. My criticisms include:

  1. Different EHRs at different hospitals are unable to communicate with each other.
  2. If you work at different hospitals with different EHRs, you have to be trained and retrained in multiple EHR platforms.
  3. With an EHR it takes at least 5 clicks to chart “atropine 0.4 mg.” In the past with a paper record you would merely write “0.4” on the atropine line.
  4. Nurses consistently have their backs to patients as they type, type, type data into computer terminals. In an operating room, the circulating nurse’s job is analogous to that of a court reporter/stenographer. Florence Nightingale would have had a stroke.
  5. As ZDoggMD points out in his video, the current EHR is a “glorified billing platform with some patient stuff tacked on.” Hospitals spend hundreds of millions of dollars to install the EHR, and then tell us that the EHR will help them bill and collect money at a superior rate. The economics don’t add up, and have nothing to do with patient care.
  6. With an EHR, instead of writing a pertinent note at each patient encounter, health care providers copy and paste previous notes, altering the minimal differences at each encounter. This habit makes it difficult to ferret out the pertinent information in, for example, a six-page copied template.

ZDoggMD challenges us as healthcare providers. On his website he writes, “We on the front lines of healthcare need to stand up and demand that our organizations, government, and tech vendors stop letting the unintended consequences of legislation and technology wreck our sacred relationship with patients while destroying our ability to do what we do without having to tell our kids to stay as far away from medicine as they can. Great technology [insert Steve Jobs fanboy comments here] can be the glue that connects us…”

Indeed, I wish Apple Computers would create an EHR which was as intuitive and easy as their iPad software.

Perhaps in the future the state of mind of an EHR will be superior. As of now, as ZDoggMD points out, it is not.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

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AN ANESTHESIA PATIENT QUESTION: “WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO WAKE UP AFTER ANESTHESIA?”

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 77 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Patients sometimes say, “Why did it take me so long to wake up after anesthesia?” when they discussed their previous anesthetic history. They are fearful that something is wrong with them, and they will always have delayed awakenings.

 

Certain patients have consistent bad experiences from a past general anesthetic. A previous anesthetic left them somnolent all day after surgery, and/or they felt sleepy or ill for days after a previous surgery. They wonder if they are at increased risk for anesthesia, if something went wrong in their past anesthetics, and whether they can do about it.

Whenever a patient tells me they’ve been very sensitive to anesthesia in the past, they’re always right. The good news for patients is: you probably can do something to help yourself in the future.

The most valuable thing you can do is obtain a copy of your previous anesthetic record and Post Anesthesia Recovery Room records from a surgery in which you had a perceived prolonged wake up. Save these documents and present them to future anesthesiologists. Inform future anesthesiologists regarding your history of prolonged sedation, and they can make adjustments in their drug delivery and techniques to attempt to avoid the same problems. Future anesthesiologists can administer lower doses of medications or fewer medications as they deem advisable.

The world’s foremost anesthesia textbook, Miller’s Anesthesia, does not have a specific section or chapter on the topic of avoiding prolonged wake ups. If you search the Internet or the PubMed website for a discussion of the topic “prolonged awakening from anesthesia,” you’ll find a shortage of useful information. Few papers have been published on the topic.

But every case of prolonged wake-up has its own story. General anesthetics and sedative drugs work by anesthetizing the brain and central nervous system. Based on thirty years as an anesthesiologist, the personal administration of 25,000+ anesthetics, and information from medical textbooks, what follows are lists of the primary factors which cause prolonged sedation after anesthesia.

Patient characteristics that correlate with prolonged awakening after anesthesia:

  1. Patients with a past history of slow awakening from anesthesia.
  2. Patients who are naïve to central nervous system depressants in their weekly life. That is, they never or very rarely drink alcohol, and never take sedating medications of any kind. Chronic alcohol consumption increases the dose of propofol required to induce loss of consciousness (Fassoulaki, A et al. Chronic alcoholism increases the induction dose of propofol in humans.Anesthesia and Analgesia. 1993;77(3):553-556). Conversely, patients who have zero or modest exposure to drugs like alcohol can require lower doses of anesthetic drugs.
  3. Patients who claim they are “sensitive to all medicines.”
  4. Elderly patients. As you age your ability to metabolize medications decreases. Older persons, especially those over the age of 70-80 years, require lower doses.
  5. Obese patients. Intravenous doses of medications are calculated according to a patient’s weight, but this number should be their lean body weight, not their weight including excess fat. Imagine two patients who are the same age and height, but one weighs 150 pounds and the second weighs 300 pounds. The second patient will need higher doses than the first, but will not require twice the dose. Markedly increasing the weight of fat cells does not mean the brain needs twice the dose of medications.
  6. Petite patients. What if an anesthesia provider administers his or her standard recipe for anesthesia without noticing that their current patient only weighs 88 pounds? Standard doses for a 150-pound person will be excessive in an 88-pound patient.
  7. Patients with decreased function of one or more of the major organ systems, that is the heart, lungs, liver, or kidney. Depending on the medication, one or more of these organ systems are required to clear the drug from the body. A patient with heart failure or decreased cardiac output will not be able to pump the drug efficiently throughout the body to the lungs, liver, or kidneys to clear the drug. A patient with decreased lung function/ventilation will not be able to exhale vapor anesthetics promptly. A patient with decreased liver function will not be able to clear certain drugs like narcotics from the body promptly. A patient with decreased kidney function will not be able to clear paralyzing drugs such as the muscle relaxant rocuronium from the body promptly.
  8. Patients with an abnormal brain. For example, patients with dementia, delirium, congenital developmental delay, or any organic brain syndrome may experience increased post-operative sedation due to exaggerated effects of the anesthetic medications on their brains.

Medical circumstances that contribute to prolonged patient awakening after anesthesia:

  1. The longer the surgery and anesthetic duration, the longer the wake up time. This is because the longer exposure to anesthetic drugs requires a longer time to exhale the vapor drugs or to clear and metabolize the intravenous drugs.
  2. The more complex the surgery, the longer the wake up time. Certain surgeries, for example a liver transplant, are so complex that an anesthesiologist often plans to keep the patient asleep in the intensive care unit after the surgery until the first post-operative day.
  3. An inexperienced anesthetist may resort to a standard recipe for every patient, and administer a more heavy-handed concoction of anesthetic drugs than are necessary for patients in our first list above.
  4. Painful surgery. Any surgery which hurts a great deal will require increased pain-relieving medications in the Post Anesthesia Recovery Room. Pain-relieving medications include narcotics such as morphine or fentanyl, which are sedating and sometimes nauseating. The less of these medicines you require, the more alert you’ll feel. Local anesthetic injections by the surgeon or a regional anesthesia nerve block by the anesthesiologist can decrease your need for narcotics, decrease post-operative pain, and decrease your risk of prolonged sedation after surgery.

You have little control over the drugs you’ll be given during surgery, but please inform and remind your anesthesiologist regarding any characteristics from the first list above. An honest discussion of your previous bad anesthetic experience(s), together with obtaining a copy of a previous anesthetic record(s), may grant you some control regarding how sedated you feel after future anesthetic experiences.

YOU are your own best advocate. Don’t be afraid to inform your anesthesiologist.

I refer you to a related column, HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE ME TO WAKE UP FROM GENERAL ANESTHESIA?

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

LEARN MORE ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM BY CLICKING ON THE PICTURE BELOW:

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HOW COMMON ARE CARDIAC ARRESTS DURING SURGERY AND ANESTHESIA?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

 

How common are cardiac arrests during surgery? Uncommon, but the incidence is not zero and the outcome is usually dire.

ventricular fibrillation

In 2004 the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists reported 2,443 cardiac arrests (6.34 per 10,000 anesthetics) and 2,638 deaths (6.85 per 10,000 anesthetics) among 3,855,384 anesthetics. The majority of deaths were due to preoperative health complications (64.7%) and surgical problems (23.9%). The main preoperative problem leading to death was hemorrhagic shock, and the main surgical problem leading to death was excessive surgical bleeding. The incidence of cardiac arrest totally attributable to anesthesia mismanagement was low (0.47 per 10,000 anesthetics), and anesthesia mismanagement was responsible for only 1.5% of deaths. (1)

The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement database from 2005 to 2007 documented the incidence of intraoperative cardiac arrest in non-cardiac surgery as 7.22 per 10,000 cases. Intraoperative blood loss, represented by the amount of blood transfused, was the most important risk factor. Patients receiving over 10 units of blood had greater than 10 times the risk of those receiving 1-3 units of blood. Two other significant risk factors were emergency surgery and the patient’s preoperative health as assessed by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status ranking. Of the 262 patients with intraoperative cardiac arrests, 44% died within 24 hours and 62% died within 30 days. (2)

From 2010 to 2013 the National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry reported the risk of intraoperative cardiac arrest as 5.6 per 10,000 cases. Fifty-eight percent of these patients died. The incidence of cardiac arrest increased with age and ASA physical status ranking, with the majority occurring in patients with an ASA physical status of 3-5. (3)

Physicians from a Thai teaching hospital reviewed 44,339 emergency surgery patients from 2003 to 2011, and found the incidence of perioperative cardiac arrest in emergency surgery was 163 per 10,000 cases. Risk factors were age 2 years or younger, an ASA physical status of 3-4, risky anatomic sites of surgery (upper abdomen, intracranial, intrathoracic, cardiac, or major vascular), cardiac or respiratory comorbidities, and shock prior to anesthesia. (4)

A Brazilian study documented a higher incidence of perioperative cardiac arrest in children than in adults. From 1996 to 2004, 15,253 anesthetics were performed in children. There were 35 cardiac arrests (22.9 per 10,000) and 15 deaths (9.8 per 10,000). Risk factors for cardiac arrest were children under one year of age, emergency surgery, ASA physical status 3-5, and general anesthesia. There were 11 cardiac arrests related to anesthesia care. Seventy-one per cent of these were caused by airway management/respiratory events, and 28% were caused by medication-related events. There were zero deaths attributed to anesthesia. (5).

What does all this mean?

If you’re an anesthesia provider, know that that the risk of cardiac arrest during surgery and anesthesia is low. The average reported incidence is in the ballpark of 6 to 7 per 10,000 cases, higher in children (22.9 per 10,000), and highest in emergency surgeries (163 per 10,000).

A busy anesthesiologist doing his or her own cases performs 1000 anesthetics per year. A predicted experience would be one cardiac arrest every 6-7 years, or 4-5 cardiac arrests in a 30-year career. A physician anesthesiologist supervising four CRNAs in four operating rooms could do four times as many cases per year, so a predicted incidence would be 16-20 cardiac arrests in a 30-year career.
Anesthesiologists should be prepared to promptly manage cardiac arrests in the patients at highest risk, which include: those with extensive bleeding and transfusion requirements; patients in shock; emergency surgeries; particularly emergency surgeries involving the upper abdomen, craniotomies, cardiac, intrathoracic, and major vascular vessels; patients with preoperative physical status limitations (ASA physical status 3-5); and children under one year of age.

In 30+ years of administering approximately 25,000 anesthetics I’ve seen cardiac arrests in three cases, for a personal anecdotal incidence of 1.2 per 10,000. All were in the high-risk categories above. One patient was in hemorrhagic shock prior to surgery because of an acute bleed from a ruptured aortic aneurysm, one patient was undergoing aortic artery bypass surgery, and one patient was a sick end-stage renal disease dialysis patient undergoing vascular surgery.

If you’re a patient, realize that your risk of having a cardiac arrest under anesthesia is low. If you have any of the risk factors described above, your risks are higher. Trust that the surgeon and physician anesthesiologist who take care of you will be well prepared, aware of this data, and will take excellent care of you while you are asleep.

In the future, physician anesthesiologists will have an abundance of “Big Data” on clinical issues such as this one. The ASA and its affiliate, the Anesthesia Quality Institute (AQI), are compiling the National Anesthesia Clinical Outcomes Registry (NACOR), which has been designated as a Qualified Clinical Data Registry (QCDR) by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services for Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS).

Can we lower the incidence of perioperative cardiac arrest? Perhaps, as we gain more understanding of risk factors. But as the Baby Boomer population in the United States ages, there will be more old patients, more patients with multiple medical problems, and more emergency surgeries on older, sicker patients.
Anesthesiologists will continue to be challenged.

References:
1. Irita K, et al. Annual mortality and morbidity in operating rooms during 2002 and summary of morbidity and mortality between 1999 and 2002 in Japan: a brief review. Masui. 2004 Mar;53(3):320-335.

2. Goswami S, Brady JE, Jordan DA, Li G. Intraoperative cardiac arrests in adults undergoing noncardiac surgery: incidence, risk factors, and survival outcome. Anesthesiology. 2012 Nov;117(5):1018-26.

3. Nunnally ME, O’Connor MF, Kordylewski H, Westlake B, Dutton RP. The incidence and risk factors for perioperative cardiac arrest observed in the national anesthesia clinical outcomes registry. Anesth Analg. 2015 Feb;120(2):364-70.

4. Siriphuwanun V, et al. Incidence of and factors associated with perioperative cardiac arrest within 24 hours of anesthesia for emergency surgery. Risk Manag Healthc Policy. 2014 Sep 4;7:155-62. doi: 10.2147/RMHP.S67935. eCollection 2014.

5. Gobbo Braz L, et al. Perioperative cardiac arrest and its mortality in children. A 9-year survey in a Brazilian tertiary teaching hospital. Paediatr Anaesth. 2006 Aug;16(8):860-6.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

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SERIALIZATION OF THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN … CHAPTER THREE

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

3) QUEEN ALEXANDRA APPROXIMATELY

I drove my black BMW M6 convertible up the semicircular driveway to our Palo Alto home after work, and parked behind my wife’s silver Aston Martin One-77. Together, the value of the two cars approximated the gross national products of some third world nations. Our home was a 7,000-square-foot Tuscan villa built on a hilltop west of the Stanford University campus. The Antone estate encompassed three acres of tranquility, and towered above an urban area of seven million Californians, most of whom were mired in less-than-tranquil rush hour traffic at that very moment.

Our living room featured thirty-foot-high ceiling-to-floor windows overlooking San Francisco Bay. The décor included opulent white Baker couches no one ever sat on and a Steinway grand piano no one ever played. I sped through the formal room at flank speed. I couldn’t remember ever spending more than five minutes hanging out in this museum piece of showroom design.

I carried a large bag of Chinese take-out food from Chef Chu’s, and set it down on the stainless steel countertop of our spotless, never-used kitchen. I made a beeline for the refrigerator, popped the top off a Corona, and chugged half the bottle. I was still vibrating from my day in the operating room. I looked out the French doors toward the back patio.

Alexandra was lying on a lounge chair and sipping a tall drink through a straw. A broad-brimmed Panama hat graced her swirling mane of black hair. She wore a white one-piece swimming suit. It was an unseasonably warm day for January, and my wife never missed an opportunity to bronze her lanky limbs.

I walked up behind Alexandra, wrapped my arms around her neck, and kissed her left cheek. She held a cell phone against her right ear, and she pushed me away while she continued her conversation. I frowned and said nothing. Was it so hard for Alexandra to pretend she loved me? I sank into a second chaise lounge beside her, closed my eyes and listened.

“That property is overpriced at $6.5 million,” she said. “I know we can get it for 6.2. Put in the bid tonight and tell the seller they need to decide by tomorrow morning or the deal’s off. Got it? Call me back when they cave. Ciao.”

Alexandra set her phone down and lit a Marlboro Light 100. She inhaled with a violent effort, exhaled the smoke through her nostrils, dragon-like, and turned toward me. She wore broad Ray-Ban sunglasses. I couldn’t tell if she was looking at me or if she was looking out over San Francisco Bay, a vista Alexandra may well have considered far more interesting.

“How are you?” she said.

“I had a busy day. Today I was in the neuro room…”

Her phone rang again, and she waved me off while she took the call. My heart sank anew. She listened for an extended time and then she said, “I’ll be there at 5. No problem. Thanks.” She hung up and thrust her fist into the air. “Got a whale on the line,” she said. “There’s a couple from Taiwan who want to see the Jorgensen house tonight. Their agent drove them by the property this morning. They are very, very interested, and very, very wealthy. It’s an all-cash deal. A blank check.” She took a second long drag on her cigarette, and leaned toward me. At this angle, I could see my own reflection dwarfed in the lenses of her sunglasses. “This is big, Nico.”

“How much is the Jorgensen house listed for?”

“Just under 8 mill. That’s a quarter of a million dollar commission for yours truly.”

Her monomaniacal pursuit of money baffled me. Alexandra Regina Antone was one of America’s top real estate agents. Because of her explosive earning power, we lived in one of the nation’s most expensive residential neighborhoods, a zip code where Silicon Valley’s multimillionaire CEO’s and venture capitalists lorded in their castles. The residential properties Alexandra bought and sold for her clients were in the $3 million to $10 million range, and she earned a 3% commission on each sale. She sold one or two houses each month, and her income for the past year topped $9 million.

Alexandra’s salary dwarfed mine. None of my medical peers lived in this kind of luxury. To Alexandra, another $240,000 commission was headline news. It wasn’t about the cash—this was about the glory of Alexandra and her talent. It was about the Queen of Palo Alto rising higher and higher on the pedestal she’d erected for herself.

“So, you were telling me about your day,” Alexandra said, as she stretched her arms toward the sky and stifled a yawn.

“I did a craniotomy with Judith Chang. One case. It took all day.”

She took a final drag on her Marlboro, shivered in disgust, and said, “Judith Chang is such a stiff. Always bragging about her robotic daughters. I don’t know how you can do that job, locked in a windowless room with her hour after hour.” Alexandra had zero interest in listening to medical stories. She changed the topic at once. “Did you hear about Johnny’s report card?”

“I did. He’s pretty upset. Johnny wishes his grades were better. I wish his grades were better. He said you yelled at him.”

“Johnny’s a slacker. God knows I tried to light a fire under him years ago, but you taught him how to watch ESPN instead of pushing academics.”

“He said you called him a lazy shit.”

“I did. He is a lazy shit.”

“He’s your son, for God’s sakes. Johnny loves you and looks up to you. How do you think he feels when his mother says that?”

“I don’t give a fuck how he feels. Johnny needs to hear it, and he needs to change. Clue in! You don’t seem to get it, either. You think he’s fine just the way he is. Well he isn’t, Nico. Johnny’s a spoiled brat, living in luxury on top of this hill. He has no incentive to work hard. He thinks he can live off my money forever.”

Alexandra was dogmatic about the pathway to success. She was an unabashed academic snob—a graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School—and she’d have tattooed her Ivy League diplomas across her cleavage if she hadn’t been too vain to disfigure her silicone orbs. I wasn’t going to fight with her—I never won.

I shifted gears. “Dr. Chang had an interesting take on Johnny’s grades. She said Johnny could get into any college he wanted to if we lived in South Dakota.” I explained how Dr. Chang’s nephew from Sioux Falls was accepted to Princeton.

Alexandra removed her hat, shook out her hair, and took off her sunglasses to reveal flashing brown eyes. “For a change, Judith Chang is right. Johnny’s chances for success are slim on his current path. He has no chance at the Ivy League coming out of Palo Alto with his B average.” She chewed on the earpiece of her Ray-Bans as she contemplated. “Why don’t we send him to Minnesota to live with Dominic?”

“You’re kidding,” I said. My Uncle Dominic had a home near the Canadian border, in Hibbing, Minnesota, where I graduated from high school. Hibbing was a great place if you wanted to hunt partridge or ice fish for walleye pike, but the tiny village was a subarctic outpost light-years removed from the opulence Johnny grew up with in California.

“I’m not kidding. Johnny needs a gimmick for college admissions, and he has none. Hibbing could be his ticket.”

“He can’t just move up there with Dominic. Johnny’s 17 years old. And Dominic moved to Arizona. His house is empty.”

“Then take a year off. Go up there with him. Get your ass out of that windowless tomb of an operating room and take your son back to your childhood home.”
I frowned. “What about you?”

“Are you kidding? I’m not going anywhere. My friends are here, my job is here. But you go right ahead, Nico.”

Now it was my turn to stare off at the blue expanse of San Francisco Bay. Move back to the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota, to the land of rusted-out Fords and beer-swilling Vikings fans? What had my marriage come to? Before Johnny was born, Alexandra and I used to sit in these same chairs and drink margaritas together. Naked dips in this same pool led to nights of laughter and hot sex. Our current sex life had declined to hall sex, when I murmured “fuck you” under my breath after Alexandra walked past me in the hallway on her way to the second bedroom where she slept alone.

Alexandra was unrelenting. “Don’t give Johnny an option. Tell him you’re taking him to Minnesota to turn his life around, get some A’s, and graduate number one in his class from Hibbing High School. Call Dominic tonight and make the arrangements. It’ll be the best decision you’ve ever made. Trust me.”

Trust me. Alexandra could sell bikinis to Eskimos. “You’re OK with your husband and son moving 2,000 miles away?” I said.

She wrapped her arms around herself in an absurd parody of self-love and said, “Of course I’ll miss you.” Then she laid back onto the chaise lounge, the top third of her breasts busting out of her swimsuit top. She knit her hands behind her head, pushed her cleavage out into the January sunshine, and grinned in silence.

I watched the spectacle of her arching self-absorption and winced. Move 2,000 miles away? I was 2,000 miles away from this woman already.

“Hey guys,” came a voice from behind us. Johnny was home from school. He walked onto the patio and stood between us. My mood improved at once. Our son was tall and muscular with perfect skin, dark wavy hair, and striking blue eyes. He wore his usual uniform of gym shorts and an oversized T-shirt. My love for Johnny was unlike any emotion I’d ever felt. Romantic love for a woman was a wonderful abyss—the subject matter of a million songs, books, movies, and television shows. I’d watched romantic love drift off into the ozone as years passed, but with my son I was in love forever. If Alexandra and I ever divorced, I’d carry on. If my son ever shut me out, I’d need electroshock therapy.

Johnny wasn’t smiling. His shoulders drooped, his chin scraped his chest, and his gaze was locked onto the slate tiles under his well-worn Nike athletic shoes.

“How’s the Boy with the B’s doing?” Alexandra said.

Johnny regarded her through hooded eyes—James Dean with a cause. His upper lip curled skyward in a look of contempt. He was already smoldering from a bad day, and she was throwing kerosene on his fire.

She forged on, hawking optimism now. “Dad and I have a great plan for you that should make your report card problem of no consequence.”

“Great plan?” Contempt turned to suspicion.

“Johnny, are you happy that your grades rank you in the middle of the pack at your school?” she said.

“You know I’m not,” he sneered. I didn’t have a 42-inch monitor displaying Johnny’s vital signs, but I knew my son’s blood pressure was escalating.

“Would you like to be accepted into a top college?”

“Duh. Of course, Mom.”

“What if we told you there was a way for you to graduate at the top of your class and go on to one of America’s best colleges?”

“I’d say you were smoking too much weed.”

“No weed.”

“How am I going to jump to the head of my class at Palo Alto Hills High?”

“Not Palo Alto Hills High School, Johnny. Hibbing High School.”

Johnny looked from me to his mother and back again. “You two are messed up. Hibbing? Where the hell is that?”

“Hibbing is in Northern Minnesota. It’s where your dad grew up. It could be worse. We’re not sending you off to some military school in the badlands of Utah where you don’t know anyone. Your dad will move to Minnesota with you.”

“That’s ridiculous… Dad?” he said, panic in his voice.

I opened my mouth, but Alexandra didn’t give me a chance to weigh in. “There are consequences for your lack of effort in school, Johnny,” she said. “We want you to get out of Palo Alto and compete for grades with the sons and daughters of some iron ore miners. Right, Nico?” She turned to me for affirmation.

Johnny’s jaw sagged. “Dad?” he said again.

“I’m overdue for my sabbatical at the University,” I said. “My Uncle Dominic has a house in Hibbing. With your brains, your test scores, and a lot of hard work, you could be a top student up there. Instead of being a middle-of-the-pack Palo Alto student, you could be….” At this point I decided to gamble and appeal to my son’s ego and vanity, “You could be the valedictorian.”

“Can the best students from a school like that get into a top college?”

“They can. When I was a senior at Hibbing High, two kids were accepted to Harvard. It’s got to be the best high school in the northern half of Minnesota.”

“Whoa. Harvard?”

“Yes, Harvard.”

Johnny looked over at his mother. She smirked, as if she’d single-handedly masterminded a strategic maneuver worthy of Machiavelli.

“I’ll have to think about this,” Johnny said.

“I’ve got to shower and get ready for my meeting,” Alexandra said. “Nico, you guys are on your own for dinner. Johnny, I’m sure you’ll love Minnesota.” She rolled off her lounge chair as Johnny covered his eyes and pressed his thumbs into his temples.

She walked away, and I admired the swagger of her slender hips and the bounce of her long tresses. I never got tired of looking at Alexandra, but it wasn’t much fun living with a woman whose best friend was her mirror.

I turned to Johnny. “Want some Chinese food?” I said.

“I’ll eat it in my room, Dad. I have a ton of homework. I’m really pissed off about everything and I don’t want to talk anymore. First I get the crappy report card, and now you guys want to ship me off to the Yukon. All you guys care about is grades. You don’t give two shits about whether I’m happy or not.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true. Just leave me alone. I’m going to my room. This B-student has a date with Hamlet.” Johnny walked away, and I let him go. My B-student son needed more dates with the Danish prince.

I dished out a plate of Szechwan prawns and General’s Tso’s chicken, and popped the top off a second Corona. The Golden State Warriors were playing the Miami Heat at 6 p.m. A second Corona, some Schezwan prawns, and the basketball game sounded like a decent evening.

After halftime, Johnny came shuffling down the hallway. He stretched out on the couch opposite me, and opened his laptop. He was humming to himself, and his fingers were flying.

I was happy to see he’d cheered up. “Feeling better?” I said.

“Yep. The Chinese food hit the spot.”

I waited for more conversation, but none was forthcoming. The Warriors connected on an alley-oop and an outrageous dunk. Johnny didn’t look up.

“How’s Amanda?” I said, trying to stoke up a dialogue. Amanda Feld was Johnny’s girlfriend, a petite cross-country runner who gazed at Johnny like he was a Greek god. She hadn’t been over for a couple of weeks, and Johnny hadn’t brought up her name for longer than that.

“Amanda’s history,” Johnny said.

“History?”

“I broke up with her a month ago, Dad.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing happened. It didn’t work out.”

“She was cute.”

“Yep.”

I waited for more of an explanation, but none came. Amanda’s fate paralleled all the other breakups of the past year, when Johnny ended relationships with Samantha the cheerleader, Emily the debate star, and Jenna the girl across the street. Johnny seemed to attract girls by repelling them. The less interest he showed, the more the women orbited him. I was envious.

Johnny said, “The report card and class rank bullshit really wore me down today. Why should my whole future revolve around some alphabet letters on a page?”

“It doesn’t. Your life is much more than your grades.”

“Yeah, like what?”

I pointed my two forefingers at my son just like I had a thousand times in his life, and said, “You’re a great kid. Don’t ever forget it.”

“Why do you always have to say that to me, Dad?”

“Because it’s true. I want you to imprint it in your brain and never doubt it.”

“Even if I can’t get an A in one class?”

“Even if you can’t get one A.”

“I want to get A’s. All A’s. But transferring to Minnesota?” Johnny tapped the screen of his laptop and said, “I’m looking at the Weather Channel website. It’s minus five degrees and snowing in Hibbing right now.”

“Yep. That’s why I left. In the winter the sun sets at 3:30 in the afternoon.”

“That’s insane.”

“It ain’t California.”

He shook his head. “I’m going to sleep.”

“Good night, son. I love you.”

“Love you, too,” Johnny said, and then he headed off toward his room.

I welcomed the tranquility from the two beers. My eyelids grew heavy, and I faded toward unconsciousness. My cell phone rang and woke me. I didn’t recognize the number. I answered the call, and a male voice said, “Alexandra?”

“No, this is her husband’s number. Who’s calling?”

There was a click as the line went dead. The heaviness in my eyelids was gone. I found myself mistrusting my wife.

Again.

I woke in the middle of the night. I’d dozed off in my chair in front of the flickering television. A Seinfeld rerun was playing. I turned off the TV, tried my best to stay asleep, and stumbled down the hallway toward my bedroom. The door to Alexandra’s bedroom was open, and her bed was untouched. I looked at my watch. It was 2:07 a.m.

A surge of annoyance ran through me. Where the devil was she at 2 o’clock in the morning on a Thursday night? My hopes for a quick return to slumber were dashed. I was full of adrenaline, and I wasn’t going back to sleep anytime soon. I walked into her room and laid down on her bed. The familiar smell of her hair from the pillows jolted me. It had been a long time since we’d touched the same sheets together.

I heard a car door slam outside. A minute later, Alexandra stood in the bedroom doorway. She carried her high heel shoes in one hand and wore a black spaghetti strap cocktail dress. Those spectacular legs were glistening from mid-thigh on down.

She was startled to see me. “What are you doing in my room?” she said.

“Waiting up. Where were you?” My voice quivered with resentment.

“Oh, Jesus, Nico. I’m not a sixteen-year-old girl, and you’re not my dad. I went out with the girls and had a couple of drinks and some laughs. It was fun. You should try it sometime.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Believe whatever you want. Can you get out of my room now so I can go to sleep?”

I turned on the overhead lights, and examined the illuminated spectacle of Alexandra Antone. Her arms were crossed, and she was smirking down at me. A streak of red lipstick stretched from her upper lip across her right cheek. Was she was playing kissy-face with the girls?

I lost it. “Are you playing me?” I said.

“What are you talking about?”

“Are you playing me for a fool? Who were you with?”

She turned her back on me and walked into her closet. “You are such a buzzkill,” she called out. “You always hate it when I have fun. I have a life. I’m sorry you’re jealous.”

I ran to her like a wild bull. I grabbed her by the arm and swung her around to face me.

“Are you having an affair?” I screamed.

Dull eyes stared back at me. Alexandra blinked twice, shook her head in disgust, and said, “No, I’m not. And get your hands off of me, Nico. You’re still the same small-town hick you’ve always been.”

Her defiance infuriated me further. “I’m sick of you, and I’m sick of our bogus marriage.”

She laughed at me and said, “You need to find somebody else. Someone who likes listening to your boring medical stories. Someone who wants to cook meat and potatoes for you. Someone who enjoys staying home and watching TV with you.”

“I’m married to you. I’m not finding anybody else while I’m your husband.”

“Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?”

I saw flames. I picked up her six-foot-tall cast iron coat rack and rammed the shaft through the closet wall. The metal hung there, cleaving the room between us.

“Are you crazy?” Her shriek was ear-splitting.

“At least I’m not a whore.” With those words, I’d crossed the line. As of that moment, I knew I could no longer live with the woman. “If you want to stay out half the night like a tramp, don’t bother to come home at all.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she screeched. “You’re the one who needs to move out. I paid for this damn house.”

The hardwood floor creaked behind me, and a voice bellowed, “Shut the fuck up! Both of you!” It was Johnny, standing in the doorway in his undershorts. My world stopped. Alex and I stared at our son, and no words were offered.

Alexandra spoke at last. She said, “Whatever. Can you two get out of my bedroom now?”
Johnny shook his head and disappeared into the darkness of his own room. I was so embarrassed and furious I found it hard to breathe. The two most important relationships in my life were imploding before my eyes. I left Alexandra’s room, and she shut her door behind me. I leaned against the closed door of Johnny’s bedroom and said, “I’m sorry, son. I’m sorry you had to hear that.”

“Then stop talking about it,” he said. I waited there for five minutes. He made no further sound. I walked away, back to my isolation in the master bedroom.
I lay in the dark with a pillow over my eyes and replayed what had just gone down. My life was ridiculous. My separate-evening, separate-bedroom, give-your-husband-shit-whenever-possible marriage was ridiculous. How could Johnny have a healthy adolescence under these circumstances?

I had no answers. I was angry, depressed, and reeling. I reached into the drawer of my bedside table, pulled out my bottle of Ambien, popped two, and chased them with a swallow of water from last night’s glass. I was an expert at anesthesia, even when I was the patient.

The next day I dragged myself through five routine surgeries although I was so angry it took all my will to concentrate on my craft. When I returned to my house that evening, Johnny was stretched out in my lounge chair. He was watching TV and typing into his laptop. He’d been asleep when I left for work that morning, so I hadn’t seen him since the screaming session in the hallway. Alexandra was nowhere to be seen.

“Hey, Dad,” Johnny said without looking up.

“Hello, son. Did you get some sleep after that whole episode last night?”

“I did. Mom gave me a ton of crap this morning for swearing at her and being disrespectful.” His face soured. If there was more to say, he wasn’t going there. He closed the laptop and said, “Other than that, it was a good day. I’ve been researching a lot of stuff about Hibbing on the Internet.”

He had my attention.

“That was excellent Chinese food last night, wouldn’t you agree?” he said.

“It was.”

“It’ll be our last decent Chinese food for awhile, Dad. I don’t think there’ll be any outstanding Chinese restaurants up there in Hibbing. I want to do it.”

“Do it?”

“I want to get away from Palo Alto Hills High, away from Amanda Feld, and away from Mom.
I want to go to Minnesota. Will you take me?” He held out his hand toward me. I stared at it and contemplated the implications of the gesture. Johnny was an impulsive kid, capable of making radical and irrational decisions in a heartbeat, but he’d never made a decision that impacted his life to this degree.

“You mean it?”

“I do. Can you walk away from your anesthesia job?”

“Well…” My thoughts were jumbled as I pondered the coin spinning through the air. Heads, I honored my love for my son and joined him in this adventure. Tails, I maintained my love for the warmth of California and my stable university job.

The tipping point was Alexandra. She was a toxic presence in my life. More than a marital separation, I needed an exorcism. It wasn’t a question of love. I didn’t even like her.
The coin landed on heads. I clasped Johnny’s outstretched hand and said, “Let’s do this, son. Let’s move.”

“Can’t wait, Daddy-O,” Johnny said.

“I’ll call Uncle Dominic in the morning and set things up.”

Johnny smiled and repeated again, “Can’t wait.”

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

DSC04882_edited

ANESTHESIA FACTS FOR NON-MEDICAL PEOPLE: WHY DO I HAVE TO STOP EATING AND DRINKING AT MIDNIGHT BEFORE SURGERY?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

“Why do I have to stop eating and drinking prior to surgery?” This is a common question I hear from my patients—they’re puzzled by the connection between going to sleep and stopping eating prior to surgery.

 

It’s vital that your stomach is empty prior to elective surgery and anesthesia. Once you’re anesthetized, your cough reflex and gag reflex are abolished. These reflexes prevent food or liquids from entering your windpipe or your lungs, and are life-protecting reflexes in awake, healthy humans.

Under anesthesia these reflexes are absent. If you vomit or regurgitate stomach contents into your mouth, the material can descend into your windpipe or lungs. The complication of stomach contents entering your lungs is a dire event. The medical term for this occurrence is aspiration pneumonia. Aspiration refers to inhaling, and pneumonia refers to an inflammation of the lung tissue. In severe aspiration pneumonia, the lungs fail to exchange oxygen from the airways into the bloodstream, and brain and heart oxygen levels can drop to life-threatening lows.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists guidelines for fasting prior to elective surgery requiring general anesthesia, regional anesthesia, or conscious sedation/analgesia are as follows:

Fried or fatty foods                                                8 hours

A light meal (toast and clear liquids)                     6 hours

Non-human milk                                                    6 hours

Breast milk                                                             4 hours

Infant formula                                                         4 hours

Clear liquids                                                            2 hours

Clear liquids may be consumed up to 2 hours prior to anesthesia. Clear liquids include water, fruit juices without pulp, soda beverages, Gatorade, black coffee or clear tea. Milk and thick juices with pulp are not clear liquids.

These fasting guidelines do not apply to surgical procedures under local anesthesia, or to those with no anesthesia. You don’t have to fast for a dentist office visit, for example. The guidelines do apply for colonoscopies or upper gastrointestinal endoscopy procedures. The intravenous sedation drugs used for endoscopy procedures may sedate you to a deep enough level such that your gag and cough reflexes are absent.

In certain conditions, the stomach will be considered to be full even if the patient has not eaten or consumed fluids for eight hours. Acute pain syndromes such as appendicitis, a gall bladder attack, a broken bone, or a febrile illness are known to diminish the stomach’s emptying, and anesthesiologists treat these patients as if they had a full stomach whether they’ve fasted or not. Pregnant women and morbidly obese patients are also treated as having full stomachs for any surgery, because of delayed stomach emptying due to increased intra-abdominal pressure.

If a patient presents for emergency surgery, the anesthesiologist must proceed without waiting for the recommended fasting times. On induction of general anesthesia, the physician anesthesiologist will have a second individual (a nurse or a physician) apply downward pressure on the cricoid cartilage of the patient’s neck immediately upon loss of consciousness. The science of this is as follows: the circumferential ring of the cricoid cartilage encircles the windpipe.

Pushing downward on this ring compresses the esophagus below, to prevent passive regurgitation or vomiting of stomach contents. This pressing-down maneuver is called “giving cricoid pressure” or “the Sellick Maneuver,” named after Dr. Brian Arthur Sellick, the anesthesiologist who first described the maneuver in 1961. Inducing anesthesia using the Sellick maneuver is referred to as a Rapid Sequence Induction (RSI) of general anesthesia. In a RSI the anesthesiologist administers into the patient’s intravenous line: 1) a hypnotic drug such as propofol, followed by 2) a rapid paralyzing drug such as succinylcholine. The endotracheal breathing tube can then be placed in the windpipe within about 30 seconds after the loss of consciousness. The Sellick maneuver is held throughout those 30 seconds until medical confirmation that the tube is in the windpipe.

If stomach contents enter the upper airway at any time during an induction of anesthesia, the anesthesiologist will see vomitus in the patient’s mouth or inside the clear plastic facemask. The anesthesiologist may also detect evidence of inadequate oxygen exchange—i.e. the patient’s pulse oximeter readings will decline to less than the safe level of 90%. The anesthesiologist will then suction the upper airway and place a breathing tube into the windpipe as soon as possible. This tube is called an endotracheal tube, and it has a balloon near its tip. When inflated, the balloon protects stomach contents from descending into the lungs.

The anesthesiologist will then suction out the lungs through the inside the breathing tube. Suction catheters of varying length and diameters exist for this purpose. The surgery will likely be cancelled if it has not yet started. If the aspiration of stomach contents occurs in the middle of surgery, it’s likely the surgery will be aborted or shortened.

As I have written in multiple posts on this website, all critical care medicine resuscitation follows the A-B-C mantra of Airway—Breathing—Circulation. The regurgitation of stomach contents interferes with both A and B by blocking the airway and interfering with breathing.

The medical term for fasting prior to surgery is NPO, which stands for “nil per os,” a Latin phrase for nothing per mouth. If you hear your doctor or nurse say, “Is she NPO?” they’re asking the important question of whether you have fasted as required. Being NPO may seem inconvenient and unnecessary, but it’s critical to assure your health and well being during anesthesia.

Reference: Practice Guidelines for Preoperative Fasting and the Use of Pharmacologic Agents to Reduce the Risk of Pulmonary Aspiration: Application to Healthy Patients Undergoing Elective Procedures An Updated Report by the American Society of Anesthesiologists Committee on Standards and Practice Parameters, 2011; Anesthesiology, Vol 14(3), 495-511.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

THE ACHILLES’ HEEL OF ANESTHESIOLOGY… WHAT IS THE GREATEST THREAT TO OUR SPECIALTY?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Anesthesiology is a wonderful profession, as I have described in many previous posts on theanesthesiaconsultant.com. But nothing is perfect, and anesthesia has one threat which could in time undermine the entire specialty. What is this threat? What is anesthesiology’s Achilles’ heel?

No, it’s not the nurse anesthetists, nor the stress of covering surgeries in the middle of the night, nor the stress of saving patients who are trying to die in front of our eyes during acute care emergencies.

Our Achilles’ heel is that we don’t have our own patients.

Primary care doctors have a bevy of patients who return to see them at regular intervals. Specialists and surgeons have a clinic full of patients who are referred to them from primary care physicians. Health care systems are acquiring primary care providers and top specialists as rapidly as they can, to assemble a sizable network of covered lives. This network of patients will serve to keep their clinics and hospitals full and profitable.

In the operating rooms, the patients are brought in by the surgeons. Anesthesia providers, be they physician anesthesiologists or nurse anesthetists, are tasked with providing safe and quality anesthesia care. Anesthesia providers are at best consultants, and at worst, “worker bees” called upon to provide a service.

Which of the following are commodities?

  1. Crude Oil
  2. Copper
  3. Soy beans
  4. Anesthesia services
  5. All of the above

Consider the answer to be E.

To hospital administrators and CEOs, anesthesia “worker bees” can be considered an expense or a commodity, somewhat similar to registered nurses, orderlies, surgical technicians, or even janitors. We can be regarded as a commodity because, like the nurses, technicians, and janitors, patient referrals do not originate with us. To a hospital CEO, each surgeon is an asset who brings surgical patients to surgery, whereas each anesthesia provider may be thought of as a worker necessary to do surgery.

Note that anesthesiologists who specialize in pain medicine in a clinic setting can be exceptions to this discussion. Pain specialists can generate their own patients from their clinics on which to do pain-relieving procedures. In their operating room role they more resemble the niche of a surgeon than that of an anesthetist.

In the current medical economy, when a hospital CEO, a health care system, or a surgery center is looking for anesthesia coverage, a priority is to acquire quality service of these anesthesia “worker bees” at the lowest possible cost. The hospital CEO, health care system, or surgery center may then grant an exclusive contract to the cheapest provider. This exclusive contract may go to a national anesthesia company, rather than the anesthesiologists currently on staff, or this exclusive contract may go to a newly hired anesthesia chairman, empowered to hire a new staff of anesthesiologists or nurse anesthetists at a budget rate.

You may be an outstanding anesthesiologist, but you are replaceable. Your anesthesia group may be an outstanding group, but your whole group is replaceable.

There are problems even if your group has an exclusive contract. Per the California Society of Anesthesiologists’ Dr. Keith Chamberlain, negative aspects of an anesthesia exclusive contract include:

  • “You can lose an exclusive contract. Anesthesia job security is based on quality, service, and (more recently) cost. Today, 80 per cent of anesthesia groups receive some subsidy from hospitals, which are strongly motivated to reduce it. Competitors often approach hospitals with business plans that eliminate the subsidy, and the decision for the hospital often comes down to cost. If your hospital privileges are tied to an exclusive contract, your ability to continue to practice will depend on your relationship with the new contract holder.
  • The contract holder will eventually experience pressure from the hospital to contract with its payers. There may be a phrase in the contract about “cooperation” with payers. Frequently this means that the contract holder must agree to a contract rate—good or bad.
  • If case volume or the number of anesthetizing locations increases, the contract may insist on the availability of additional providers, regardless of OR inefficiency or payer mix.
  • Many standard contracts allow either party to terminate without cause on 90 days following the first anniversary.”

(http://members.csahq.org/blog/2014/07/21/dont-count-exclusive-contract)

An Internet search documents specific examples of anesthesiology groups losing their jobs around the United States:

  • From Oregon, in 2010: “Turmoil at Good Samaritan: Up to 23 anesthesiologists will lose their jobs in September when Legacy Good Samaritan ends its contract with the Oregon Anesthesiology Group. The hospital plans to replace the doctors with nurse anesthetists. Unhappy physicians and their supporters have raised concerns about whether the switch puts cost savings ahead of patient safety (nurses make less than docs). Legacy spokesman Brian Terrett says the hospital will gain more control but not benefit financially from the transition because anesthesia costs are billed to patients. He added that the nurse anesthetists will be fully credentialed and supervised by doctors.” Willamette Week: July 7, 2010(https://www.oregon-crna.org/site/content/23-anesthesiologists-will-lose-their-jobs-september)
  • From the state of Virginia, in 2015: “A conflict between Riverside Regional Medical Center and its former anesthesia company has escalated to the point that Riverside is unable to perform open-heart surgery until April 23. Riverside did not renew its contract with Virginia Anesthesia and Perioperative Care Specialists and last week brought a new anesthesia company on board…. What happened? Riverside Regional Medical Center ended a long-standing relationship with a local anesthesiology group, Virginia Anesthesia and Perioperative Care Specialists, and contracted with a national management company, Soma Health Partners, effective April 7. Texas-based Soma is bringing in new anesthesiologists because, contractually, the local company’s employees cannot join the new company for two years.”( http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-local_riverside_0415apr15,0,5448759.story?track=rss)
  • From California, in 2011: In her blog, A Penned Point, Dr. Karen Sibert writes “At Kaweah Delta Medical Center in Visalia, hospital administrators put out the anesthesia contract for competitive bidding in 2011, and the all-MD anesthesia group that had held the contract for years lost out to Somnia.  A new anesthesiology chief came on board, and a care team model with nurse anesthetists took over.” (http://apennedpoint.com)

What can anesthesiologists do to respond to this Achilles’ heel threat and create better job security? To reduce the urge for a hospital CEO to displace their current anesthesia providers, you need to:

  1. Provide the highest quality of medical care to your hospital and surgery centers.
  2. Provide high service to your hospital and surgery centers.
  3. Maintain high quality professional relationships with surgeons, other physician specialties, and administrators, so there is little incentive to demand a change.
  4. Become involved in hospital medical committees and politics, both for self-preservation and because these are roles typically filled by physicians, not nurse anesthetists.
  5. Avoid greed in negotiations over contracted rates and hospital stipends. By all means acquire the best deal you can, but realize that unreasonable expectations for monetary reimbursement may give the CEO an incentive to seek bids from a national anesthesia company or an alternative anesthesia group.
  6. Consider moving toward the new Perioperative Surgical Home model, as advocated by the American Society of Anesthesiologists. The PSH is a means for anesthesiologists to become valuable preoperative and postoperative necessities for their health care system, rather than just operating room anesthesia providers (which are easier to replace).

Hospital administrators and CEOs are trained to manage the bottom line. They will consider all reasonable means to reduce expenses. Be aware that your anesthesia group can be seen as a replaceable commodity. Consider points 1 – 6 above, and try not to give your hospital administrator a reason to look elsewhere for anesthesia coverage.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

ON BECOMING AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST… WHAT PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS ARE ESSENTIAL TO BECOME A SUCCESSFUL ANESTHESIOLOGIST?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 50 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

What are the personal characteristics of a successful anesthesiologist? You’ve found The Anesthesia Consultant website, so you have some interest in anesthesia. Perhaps you’ve heard that anesthesiologists earn a comfortable living.

Per wikiprofessionals.org: “According to figures from the U.S. Department of Labor, the lowest 10% of anesthesiologists earn under $135,110 per year, whereas the top 10% earn up to $408,000 per year. The median annual earnings, defined as that figure where half the experienced anesthesiologists earn less than that amount and half earn more, is $292,000. Anesthesiologists’ salaries are among the highest of all U.S. professions.”

Perhaps you’re wondering if anesthesiology is a potential vocation for you, your child, your cousin, or your niece. The truth is: a career in anesthesia involves unique demands that most people would not seek, tolerate, or ever grow accustomed to.

Nonetheless, I believe no medical specialty is more fascinating than anesthesiology. Based on thirty years as an anesthesiologist, here’s my checklist of ten qualities necessary to succeed in this profession.

You must have:

  1. Calmness under intense pressure. I’ve experience countless emergency moments where patients dropped their heart rate or blood pressure dangerously low, increased their heart rate or blood pressure dangerously high, hemorrhaged from an artery, lost their airway, or in some other unexpected way sustained a life-threatening event. An anesthesiologist must remain focused and decisive at these moments. An anesthesiologist must choose the correct diagnostic and therapeutic moves to save the patient’s life. An operating room emergency is not a time for screaming, temper tantrums, or freezing. An operating room emergency is a time for calm, assertive action.
  2. Vigilance during long periods of quasi-boredom. In between those emergency occurrences, an anesthesiologist must remain attentive without becoming bored or distracted. The motto of the American Society of Anesthesiologists is one word: Vigilance. During surgery, much of our job is to observe. One day I brought my 15-year-old son into the operating room with me to observe surgery, hoping he would respect the complex nature of my job. Instead his impression afterward was, “Dad, most of the time you don’t really do much of anything. You watch monitor screens, talk to the surgeon and the nurses, and listen to music.” One of my partners overheard this analysis and remarked, “If you see an anesthesiologist working hard, then you’ve really got a problem!”
  3. Superior skills with your hands. There are no tests during college pre-med classes or medical school clerkships to quantify an individual’s fine motor skills. Many doctors with superior manual dexterity migrate toward operative specialties like surgery or anesthesia. But not all anesthesiologists are equal. Some resident anesthesia doctors are less skillful than others at various anesthesia procedures such as placing breathing tubes into windpipes, inserting catheters into veins and arteries, injecting nerve blocks near peripheral nerves, or injecting spinals and epidurals into the lumbar spine. Residents have dropped out of our specialty altogether because they were not confident with the required procedural skills.
  4. The patience and motivation to persist through 25-27 years of training. In the song Subterranean Homesick Blues, Bob Dylan wrote, “Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift.” In anesthesiology, twenty years of schooling earns you both the dayshift and the night shift. Your education will consist of thirteen years through high school, four years of college, four years of medical school, one year of internship, three years of anesthesia residency, and probably an extra one or two years of fellowship specialization. This cascade of years stretches your education past the age of thirty. You must to be accepting of delayed gratification. During the last of those twenty-five years, when you owe $250,000 in educational debt and are roaming hospital hallways at three a.m., your college classmates who chose business careers are at home sleeping in a house they’ve already purchased.
  5. A tolerance for sleeplessness. You must have the ability to thrive during early mornings and late nights. Scheduled surgeries start early in the morning, usually at 0730. Prior to that hour, anesthesiologists meet, evaluate, and obtain consent from their first patient, and then bring the patient to the operating room and safely render them unconscious. Not all cases start at sunrise—surgical patients get sick around the clock. Emergency surgeries may start at midnight or three o’clock in the morning. Anesthesiologists must be tolerant of fatigue and still be able to work unimpaired.
  6. Compulsive attention to detail. All aspects of anesthesia care, including a) the review of a patient’s medical condition prior to surgery, b) the planning and conduct of the anesthetic, and the management of medical conditions and c) complications immediately after surgery, require the anesthesiologist to avoid mistakes of any kind and to strive for near-perfection. Psychiatrists often diagnose OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) in patients. It’s probable that most anesthesiologists have a least a touch of OCD.
  7. Thick skin. You cannot be too hard on yourself, even though anesthesiologists are not allowed to have a bad day. A bad day in this career could mean a dead patient, a comatose patient, or a patient who was supposed to be discharged home instead lying in an intensive care unit on a ventilator. You’re human, and you may make a mistake. That mistake may have no consequence or it may cost a patient dearly. If a patient suffers a bad outcome secondary to a mistake you make, you’ll have to endure the emotional toll. There are stories of anesthesiologists who quit the specialty, become addicts, or commit suicide because a patient suffered a bad outcome. You can’t succumb.
  8. Excellent communication skills. You must be someone who can sell yourself to a patient in ten minutes. Anesthesiologists typically have ten minutes before surgery to interview a patient, examine them, obtain their consent, and gain their trust. The patient will be anxious. You need to assess and manage both their medical and their emotional needs at this demanding moment. An anesthesiologist’s patients are unconscious most of the time, but not all the time. If you want a medical career with zero awake hours of patient contact, consider pathology instead of anesthesiology. A successful anesthesiologist must also cooperate with different teams of surgeons, nurses, and medical techs every day. Surgeon personalities come in all varieties—some are demanding, some are condescending, and some are bullies. You have to work effectively with all types of surgeons, whether you admire that individual’s personality or not.
  9. Intelligence. Admission to anesthesia residency positions is very competitive. In 2014 there were only 1,049 anesthesia PG-1 (Post-Graduate Year 1) residency positions in the United States and 1,836 individuals who applied for these positions. Nearly 50% of applicants—all of them medical school seniors or medical school graduates—failed to land a position in anesthesia. (Ref: Results and Data, National Resident Matching Program 2014 http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Main-Match-Results-and-Data-2014.pdf)
  10. A love for helping people. Every physician must have this. We spend years memorizing facts about physiology, disease, and pharmacology, but a successful doctor must care about each patient as an individual. Empathy for patients before, during, and after the day of their surgery and anesthesia is essential.

These are ten qualities I look for in an outstanding anesthesiologist. The next time you need surgery, I’d advise you to look for and expect the same qualities in the man or woman who will anesthetize you.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

ROBOT ANESTHESIA II

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 3 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Are anesthesiologists on the verge of being replaced by a new robot? In a word, “No.” The new device being discussed is the iControl-RP anesthesia robot.

THE iCONTROL-RP ANESTHESIA ROBOT

On May 15, 2015, the Washington Post published a story titled, “We Are Convinced the Machine Can Do Better Than Human Anesthesiologists.”

In recent years there have been significant advances in the automated delivery of the intravenous anesthetic drugs propofol and remifentanil. (Orliaguet GA, Feasibility of closed-loop titration of propofol and remifentanil guided by the bispectral monitor in pediatric and adolescent patients: a prospective randomized study, Anesthesiology 2015 Apr;122(4):759-67). Propofol is an ultra-short-acting hypnotic drug that causes sleep. Remifentanil is an ultra-short-acting narcotic that relieves pain. Administered together, these drugs induce what is referred to as Total Intravenous Anesthesia, or TIVA. Total Intravenous Anesthesia is a technique anesthesiologists use when they choose to avoid using inhaled gases such as sevoflurane and nitrous oxide. Anesthesiologists administer TIVA by adjusting the flow rates on two separate infusion pumps, one infusion pump containing each drug.

A closed-loop system is a machine that infuses these drugs automatically. These systems include several essential items: The first is a processed electroencephalogram (EEG) such as a bi-spectral monitor (BIS monitor) attached to the patient’s forehead which records a neurologic measure of how asleep the patient is. The BIS monitor calculates a score between 0 and 100 for the patient’s level of unconsciousness, with a score of 100 corresponding to wide awake and 0 corresponding to a flat EEG. A score of 40 – 60 is considered an optimal amount of anesthesia depth. The second and third essential items of a closed-loop automated system are two automated infusion pumps containing propofol and remifentanil. A computer controls the infusion rate of a higher or lower amount of these drugs, depending on whether the measured BIS score is higher or lower than the 40- 60 range.

Researchers in Canada have expanded this technology into a device they call the iControl-RP, which is in clinical trials at the University of British Columbia. The iControl-RP is a closed-loop system which makes its own decisions. The initials RP stand for the two drugs being titrated: remifentanil and propofol. In addition to monitoring the patient’s EEG level of consciousness (via a BIS monitor device called NeuroSENSE), this new device monitors traditional vital signs such as blood oxygen levels, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, to determine how much anesthesia to deliver.

Per published information on their research protocol, the iControl-RP allows either remifentanil or propofol to be operated in any of three modes: (1) closed-loop control based on feedback from the EEG as measured by the NeuroSENSE; (2) target-controlled infusion (TCI), based on previously-described pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic models; and (3) conventional manual infusion, which requires a weight-based dose setting. (Reference: Closed-loop Control of Anesthesia: Controlled Delivery of Remifentanil and Propofol Dates, Status, Enrollment Verified by: Fraser Health, August 2014, First Received: January 15, 2013, Last Updated: March 5, 2015, Phase: N/A, Start Date: February 2013, Overall Status: Recruiting, Estimated Enrollment: 150).

In Phase 1 of the iControl-RP testing involving 50 study subjects, propofol will be administered in closed-loop mode and a remifentanil infusion will be administered based on a target-controlled infusion. In phase 2 involving 100 study subjects, both propofol and remifentanil will be administered in closed-loop mode. The investigators aim to demonstrate that closed-loop control of anesthesia and analgesia based on EEG feedback is clinically feasible.

In both phases, an anesthesiologist will monitor the patient as per routine practice and have the ability to modify the anesthetic or analgesic drugs being administered. That is, he or she will be able to adjust the target depth of hypnosis, adjust the target effect site concentration for remifentanil, immediately switch to manual control of either infusion, administer a bolus dose, or immediately stop the infusion of either drug. iControl-RP is connected to the NeuroSENSE EEG monitor, the two infusion pumps for separately controlled propofol and remifentanil administration, and the operating room patient vital signs monitor. A user interface allows the anesthesiologist to set the target EEG depth level, switch between modes of operation (manual, target-controlled infusion, or closed-loop), and set manual infusion rates or target effect-site concentrations for either drug as required.

Per the article in the Washington Post. (Todd C. Frankel, Washington Post, May 15, 2015), one of the machine’s co-developers Mark Ansermino, MD said, “We are convinced the machine can do better than human anesthesiologists.” The iControl-RP has been used to induce deep sedation in adults and children undergoing general surgery. The device had been used on 250 patients so far.

Why is this robotic device only a small step toward replacing anesthesiologists?

A critical realization is that anesthetizing patients requires far more skill than merely titrating two drug levels. Every patient requires (1) preoperative assessment of all medical problems from the history, physical exam, and laboratory evaluation of each individual patient, so that the anesthesiologist can plan and prescribe the appropriate anesthesia type; (2) placement of an intravenous line through which the TIVA drugs may be administered; (3) mask ventilation of an unconscious patient (in most cases), followed by placement of an airway tube to control the delivery of oxygen and ventilation in and out of the patient’s lungs; (4) observation of all vital monitors during surgery, with the aim of directing the diagnosis and treatment of any complication that occurs as a result of anesthesia or the surgical procedure; (5) removal of the airway tube at the conclusion of most surgeries, and (6) the diagnosis and treatment of any complication in the newly awake patient following the anesthetic.

In the future, closed-loop titration of drugs may lessen an anesthesiologist’s workload and free him or her for other activities. In the distant future, closed-loop titration of drugs may free a solitary anesthesiologist to initiate and monitor multiple anesthetics simultaneously from a control booth via multiple video screens and interface displays. But the handling of all tasks (1) – (6) by an automated robotic device is still the stuff of science fiction. The Washington Post article said an early role for the machine could be in war zones or remote areas where an anesthesiologist is unavailable. One could conjecture that a closed-loop anesthesia system may be used to facilitate surgery in outer space some day as well.

In either case, an anesthesiologist or some other highly-trained medical professional will still be required on site to achieve tasks (1) – (6).

The iControl-RP has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The iControl-RP team has struggled to find a corporate backer for its project. Dr. Ansermino, the anesthesiologist inventor in Vancouver, told the Washington Post, “Most big companies view this as too risky,” but he believed a device like this was inevitable. “I think eventually this will happen,” Ansermino told the Washington Post, “whether we like it or not.”

That may be, but I suspect companies are risk averse regarding the iControl-RP because investment is guided by analysts and physicians who must consider the practical applications and risks of any new medical device. The issues of leaving (1) – (6) up to a robotic device are impractical at best, and dangerous to the patient at worse.

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

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BLOOD PRESSURE DROPS TO 85/45 FOLLOWING THE INDUCTION OF ANESTHESIA: WHAT DO YOU DO?

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THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

CLINICAL CASE: You’re scheduled to anesthetize a healthy 55-year-old female for an appendectomy. Her blood pressure is 150/90 on admission. In the operating room, you induce anesthesia with your standard recipe of 2 mg of midazolam, 100 mcg of fentanyl, 200 mg of propofol, and 40 mg of rocuronium, and intubate the trachea. Five minutes after induction and 15-30 minutes before the surgical incision will occur, her blood pressure drops to 85/45. Is this a problem? What will you do? What level of hypotension is acceptable to you?

Low blood pressure in surgery

DISCUSSION: During surgery, anesthesiologists balance their administration of drugs to the level of surgical stimulation the patient is experiencing. The placement of an endotracheal tube is an intense stimulus to an awake patient, but only a moderate stimulus to an anesthetized patient. After the placement of an endotracheal tube, a lag time of fifteen minutes to thirty minutes or more occurs prior to surgical incision. During this interval, the blood pressure sometimes sags.

Let’s look at the anesthesia literature to learn what has been described about this problem.

David Reich, et al of Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York queried the computerized anesthesia records of 4,096 patients undergoing general anesthesia and analyzed the incidence of hypotension in the period immediately after induction. (Predictors of hypotension after induction of general anesthesia Anesth Analg. 2005 Sep;101(3):622-8). The median blood pressure (MAP) was determined before anesthesia induction, during the first 5 minutes after induction, and also the period from 5-10 minutes after induction. Hypotension was defined as either (1) a mean arterial blood pressure (MAP) decrease of >40% and MAP

Statistically significant predictors of hypotension after anesthetic induction included: ASA III-V, baseline MAP

Dr. Reich wrote, “association with mortality alone was not reported in the manuscript but was nearly statistically significant (P = 0.066). The majority of our colleagues apparently believe that transient hypotension is inconsequential to outcomes. Although limited by the problems associated with retrospective studies, the results of our study provide preliminary evidence that runs counter to the prevailing wisdom regarding transient severe hypotension during general anesthesia.”

What level of hypotension is unsafe for patients?

The effects of hypotension in nonsurgical subjects was studied in 1954 (Finnerty, FA, Cerebral Hemodynamics during Cerebral Ischemia Induced by Acute Hypotension1 Clin Invest. 1954 Sep; 33(9): 1227–1232). Young and old experimental subjects were subjected to increasing degrees of hypotension until clinical signs of cerebral ischemia developed. Hypotension was induced by intravenous administration of the anti-hypertensive medication hexamethonium. The authors discovered a linear relation between pre-hypotensive blood pressure and the level of induced hypotension that produced clinical signs of cerebral ischemia such as yawning, sighing, staring, confusion, inability to concentrate, inability to perform simple commands, nausea, dizziness, and involuntary body movements. Their data revealed that the safe level of hypotension was no lower than about 2/3 of the resting blood pressure before inducing hypotension. At 2/3 of their pre-procedure MAP, patients reached a threshold of clinical cerebral ischemia, with onset of yawning, sighing, staring, confusion, inability to concentrate, and inability to carry out simple commands. Because these studies were done on unanesthetized humans, it’s impossible to equate the data to patients with surgical anesthesia. Surgical patients have a different etiology for their hypotension, as well as reduced cerebral oxygen consumption from general anesthetic drugs. This explains why most surgical patients fail to manifest any cerebral damage resulting from episodes of hypotension occasionally following the induction of anesthesia.

The problem of hypotension and refractory hypotension following induction of anesthesia is currently being studied in an ongoing clinical trial at the University of Iowa. (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02416024, contact Kenichi Ueda, MD, kenichi-ueda@uiowa.edu). Induction agents in this study will include 1.5 mg/kg propofol, 2 mcg/kg fentanyl, 100 mg lidocaine, and 0.6 mg/kg rocuronium. Inhaled anesthetic will be sevoflurane at 0.5 MAC with 5L/min of 100% oxygen starting at mask ventilation till 10 minutes after tracheal intubation. Blood pressure will be measured by a brachial cuff prior to induction and every minute after intubation for 10 minutes. If the systolic pressure drops below 90 mmHg or more than 25% from baseline, the patient will be classified in the study as “Hypotensive.” Conversely, if the patient’s systolic blood pressure does not drop below 90 mmHg more than 25% from baseline within 10 minutes of intubation, the patient will be classified as “Not Hypotensive.” In attempt to bring systolic blood pressure up to above 90 mmHg or more than 25% from baseline in “hypotensive” patients, the anesthetic provider will use 100 mcg of phenylephrine (or 5 mg ephedrine if heart rate < 50 bpm) within 10 minutes of intubation. If over 200 mcg of phenylephrine (or 10 mg ephedrine) has been used without a return of the systolic brachial blood pressure >90 mmHg or more than 25% from baseline, the patient will be classified in the study as “Refractory Hypotensive.” Look for the results of this trial to be published in years to come.

Based on the data reviewed in this column, it seems advisable to maintain a patient’s mean arterial pressure at or above a level of 2/3 of their baseline pressure. What if the patient’s baseline blood pressure in their outpatient clinic notes is 120/80 (MAP=93) yet in the pre-operative room on admission to surgery their blood pressure is 150/90 (MAP=110)? This is not an uncommon occurrence, as blood pressure often spikes secondary to the inevitable anxiety which accompanies a pending surgery. Is the anesthesia provider compelled to maintain the blood pressure at 2/3 of 110 = 73 after induction, or compelled to maintain the blood pressure at 2/3 of 93 = 62 after induction? I can find no specific data to answer this question. In my experience, after the administration of 2 mg of intravenous midazolam the hypertensive 150/90 often decreases to the 120/80 (MAP=93) range. With this MAP = 93 value as the baseline blood pressure, 2/3 X 93 = 62 would be the lowest level of MAP I’d feel comfortable with. We’re trained to treat post-induction hypotension with a vasopressor. Typically phenylephrine 100 mcg will increase the pressure to its preinduction level. Some patients require more than one dose of phenylephrine.

Let’s return to the management of your Clinical Case above.

  1. You choose to administer a dose of phenylephrine 100 mcg IV, and the blood pressure returns to 110/70. You maintain general anesthesia depth with the inhaled anesthetic sevoflurane at 0.5 MAC with 5L/min of 100% oxygen.
  2. Five minutes later the blood pressure drops to 85/45 again, and you repeat a dose of phenylephrine 100 mcg IV.
  3. When the surgery begins, the blood pressure increases to 150/90, and you treat by increasing anesthesia depth.
  4. Note that per the Reich data above, the incidence of hypotension increased with higher doses of fentanyl at induction (5-5.0 mcg/kg fentanyl vs. 0-1.5 mcg/kg fentanyl). I’ve found that the lower dose range of fentanyl, specifically zero fentanyl at induction, works very well for many patients. Incremental doses of propofol alone blunt the transient hypertensive response to laryngoscopy and intubation, and the lack of fentanyl leads to less hypotension in the ten minutes post-intubation. Appropriate levels of narcotics are then titrated in when surgery commences and the surgical stimulus increases. Also per Reich’s data, for patients age 50 or older who are ASA III-V, or for patients who present with a baseline pre-operative MAP.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

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Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

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Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

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WILL YOU HAVE A BREATHING TUBE DOWN YOUR THROAT DURING YOUR SURGERY?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 49 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

One of the most common questions I hear from patients immediately prior to their surgical anesthetic is, “Will I have a breathing tube down my throat during anesthesia?”

The answer is: “It depends.”

placing anesthesia breathing tube

Let’s answer this question for some common surgeries:

KNEE ARTHROSCOPY: Common knee arthroscopy procedures are meniscectomies and anterior cruciate ligament reconstructions. Anesthetic options include general anesthesia, regional anesthesia, or local anesthesia. Most knee arthroscopies are performed under a general anesthetic, in which the anesthesiologist injects propofol into your intravenous line to make you fall asleep. After you’re asleep, the most common airway tube used for knee arthroscopy is a laryngeal mask airway (LMA). The LMA in inserted into your mouth, behind your tongue and past your uvula, to a depth just superior to your voice box. The majority of patients will breath on their own during surgery. The LMA keeps you from snoring or having significant obstruction of your airway passages. In select patients, including very obese patients, an endotracheal tube (ETT) will be inserted instead of an LMA. The ETT requires the anesthesiologist to look directly into your voice box and insert the tube through and past your vocal cords. With either the LMA or the ETT, you’ll be asleep and will have no awareness of the airway tube except for a sore throat after surgery. A lesser number of knee arthroscopies are performed under a regional anesthetic which does not require a breathing tube. The regional anesthetic options include a blockade of the femoral nerve located in your groin or numbing the entire lower half of your body with a spinal or epidural anesthetic injected into your low back. A small number of knee arthroscopies are done with local anesthesia injected into your knee joint, in combination with intravenous sedative medications into your IV. Why are most knee arthroscopies performed with general anesthesia, which typically requires an airway tube? Because in an anesthesiologist’s hands, an airway tube is a common intervention with an acceptable risk profile. A light general anesthetic is a simpler anesthetic than a femoral nerve block, a spinal, or an epidural anesthetic.

Laryngeal Mask Airway (LMA)

Endotracheal Tube (ETT)

NOSE AND THROAT SURGERIES SUCH AS TONSILLECTOMY AND RHINOPLASTY: Almost all nose and throat surgeries require an airway tube, so anesthetic gases and oxygen can be ventilated in and out through your windpipe safely during the time the surgeon is working on these breathing passages.

ABDOMINAL SURGERIES, INCLUDING LAPAROSCOPY: Almost all intra-abdominal surgeries require an airway tube to guarantee adequate ventilation of anesthetic gases and oxygen in and out of your lungs while the surgeon works inside your abdomen.

CHEST SURGERIES AND OPEN HEART SURGERIES: Almost all intra-thoracic surgeries require an airway tube to guarantee adequate ventilation of anesthetic gases and oxygen in and out of your lungs while the surgeon works inside your chest.

TOTAL KNEE REPLACEMENT AND TOTAL HIP REPLACEMENT: The majority of total knee and hip replacement surgeries are performed using spinal, epidural and/or nerve block anesthesia anesthesia to block pain to the lower half of the body. The anesthesiologist often chooses to supplement the regional anesthesia with intravenous sedation, or supplement with a general anesthetic which requires an airway tube. Why add sedation or general anesthesia to the regional block anesthesia? It’s simple: most patients have zero interest in being awake while they listen to the surgeon saw through their knee joint or hammer their new total hip into place.

CATARACT SURGERY: Cataract surgery is usually performed using numbing local anesthetic eye drop medications. Patients are wake or mildly sedated, and no airway tube is used.

COLONOSCOPY OR STOMACH ENDOSCOPY: These procedures are performed under intravenous sedation and almost never require an airway tube.

HAND OR FOOT SURGERIES: The anesthesiologist will choose the simplest anesthetic that suffices. Sometimes the choice is local anesthesia, with or without intravenous sedation. Sometimes the choice will be a regional nerve block to numb the extremity, with or without intravenous sedation. Many times the choice will be a general anesthetic, often with an airway tube. An LMA is used more frequently than an ETT.

CESAREAN SECTION: The preferred anesthetic is a spinal or epidural block which leaves the mother awake and alert to bond with her newborn immediately after childbirth. If the Cesarean section is an urgent emergency performed because of maternal bleeding or fetal distress, and there is inadequate time to insert a spinal or epidural local anesthetic into the mother’s lower back, a general anesthetic will be performed. An ETT is always used.

PEDIATRIC SURGERIES: Tonsillectomies are a common procedure and require a breathing tube as described above. Placement of pressure ventilation tubes into a child’s ears requires general anesthetic gases to be delivered via facemask only, and no airway tube is required. Almost all pediatric surgeries require general anesthesia. Infants, toddlers, and children need to be unconscious during surgery, for emotional reasons, because their parents are not present. The majority of pediatric general anesthetics require an airway tube.

CONCLUSIONS: The safe placement of airway tubes for multiple of types of surgeries, in patients varying from newborns to 100-year-olds, is one of the reasons physician anesthesiologists train for many years.

Prior to surgery, some patients are alarmed at the notion of such a breathing tube invading their body. They fear they’ll be awake during the placement of the breathing tube, or that they’ll choke on the breathing tube.

Be reassured that almost every breathing tube is placed after your unconsciousness is assured, and breathing tubes are removed prior to your return to consciousness. A sore throat afterward is common, but be reassured this is a minor complaint that will clear in a few days.

If you have any questions, be sure to discuss them with your own physician anesthesiologist when you meet him or her prior to your surgical procedure.

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

LEARN MORE ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM BY CLICKING ON THE PICTURE BELOW:

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THE TOP 10 MOST STRESSFUL JOBS IN AMERICA versus THE TOP 10 MOST STRESSFUL SITUATIONS IN ANESTHESIOLOGY PRACTICE

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 2 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Anesthesia has been described as 99% boredom and 1% panic. Is anesthesiology one of America’s most stressful jobs? Not according to prominent Internet media sources.

Careercast.com listed the Top 10 Most Stressful Jobs in America in 2015, and those jobs were:

  1. Firefighter
  2. Enlisted Military Personnel
  3. Military General
  4. Airline Pilot
  5. Police Officer
  6. Actor
  7. Broadcaster
  8. Event Coordinator
  9. Photo Journalist
  10. Newspaper Reporter.

ABCnews.go.com listed the Top 10 Most Stressful Jobs in America in 2014, and those jobs were:

  1. Working Parents
  2. Deployed Military Personnel
  3. Police Officer
  4. Teacher
  5. Medical Professionals (The article highlighted surgeons for their need to constantly focus, psychiatrists for their need to intently listen, dentists for being on their feet all day, and interns for their lack of sleep).
  6. Emergency Personnel (The article highlighted firefighters and emergency medical technicians).
  7. Pilots and Air Traffic Controllers
  8. Newspaper Reporters
  9. Corporate Executive
  10. Miner

Salary.com listed the Top 10 Most Stressful Jobs in America, and those jobs were:

  1. Military Personnel
  2. Surgeon
  3. Firefighter
  4. Commercial Airline Pilot
  5. Police Officer
  6. Registered Nurse in an Emergency Room
  7. Emergency Dispatch Personnel
  8. Newspaper Reporter
  9. Social Worker
  10. Teacher

“Anesthesiologist” is absent from every list. This is a public relations failure for our specialty. The challenges and stressors anesthesia professionals face every day are seemingly unknown to the media and the populace.

I’ll admit there are pressures involved with being a taxi driver, a news reporter, a photo journalist, an events coordinator, or a public relations executive. Being a working parent is a challenge, although in Northern California where I live millions of adults are working parents because both husbands and wives have to work to pay hefty Bay Area living expenses. But none of these jobs involve the risk and possibility of their clients dying each and every day.

Every surgical patient requires the utmost in vigilance from their physician anesthesiologist in order to prevent life-threatening disturbances of Airway-Breathing-Circulation. The public perceives surgeons as holding patients’ life in their skilled hands, and they are correct. But most surgeons spend the majority of their work time in clinics and on hospital wards attending to pre-operative and post-operative patients. On the 1 – 3 days a week most surgeons spend operating, they are joined in the operating room by anesthesiologists who attend to surgical patients’ lives every day.

Surgeons in trauma, cardiac, neurologic, abdominal, chest, vascular, pediatric, or microsurgery specialties have intense pressure during their hours in the operating room, but each time they don their sterile gloves and hold a scalpel, an anesthesiologist is there working with them.

What follows is my own personal “Top 10 Most Stressful” list, a list of the Most Stressful Anesthesia Situations based on my thirty years of anesthesia practice. Anesthesia practice has been described as 99% boredom and 1% panic, (http://theanesthesiaconsultant.com/is-anesthesia-99-boredom-and-1-panic) and the 1% panic times can be frightening. Read through this list. I believe it will convince you that the job of an anesthesiologist deserves to be on everyone’s Top 10 Most Stressful Jobs list.

TOP 10 MOST STRESSFUL SITUATIONS IN AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST’S JOB

  1. Emergency general anesthesia in a morbidly obese patient. Picture a 350-pound man with a bellyful of beer and pizza, who needs an emergency general anesthetic. When a patient with a Body Mass Index (BMI) > 40 needs to be put to sleep urgently, it’s dangerous. Oxygen reserves are low in a morbidly obese patient, and if the anesthesiologist is unable to place an endotracheal tube safely, there’s a genuine risk of hypoxic brain damage or cardiac arrest within minutes.
  1. Liver transplantation. Picture a patient ill with cirrhosis and end-stage-liver-failure who needs a complex 10 to 20-hour-long abdominal surgery, a surgery whichfrequently demands massive transfusion equal to one blood volume (5 liters) or more. These cases are maximally stressful in both intensity and duration.
  1. An emergency Cesarean section under general anesthesia in the wee hours of the morning. Picture a 3 a.m. emergency general anesthetic on a pregnant woman whose fetus is having cardiac decelerations (a risky slow heart rate pattern). The anesthesiologist needs to get the woman to sleep within minutes so the baby can be delivered by the obstetrician. Pregnant women have full stomachs and can have difficult airway because of weight changes and body habitus changes of term pregnancy. If the anesthesiologist mismanages the airway during emergency induction of anesthesia, both the mother and the child’s life are in danger from lack of oxygen within minutes.
  1. Acute epiglottitis in a child. Picture an 11-month-old boy crowing for every strained breath because the infection of acute epiglottis has caused swelling of his upper airway passage. These children arrive at the Emergency Room lethargic, gasping for breath, and turning blue. Safe anesthetic management requires urgently anesthetizing the child with inhaled sevoflurane, inserting an intravenous line, and placing a tracheal breathing tube before the child’s airway shuts down. A head and neck surgeon must be present to perform an emergency tracheostomy should the airway management by the anesthesiologist fails.
  1. Any emergency surgery on a newborn baby. Picture a one-pound newborn premature infant with a congenital defect that is a threat to his or her life. This defect may be a diaphragmatic hernia (the child’s intestines are herniated into the chest), an omphalocele (the child’s intestines are protruding from the anterior abdominal wall, spina bifida (a sac connected to the child’s spinal cord canal is open the air through a defect in the back), or a severe congenital heart disorder such as a transposition of the great vessels (the major blood vessels: the aorta, the vena cavas and the pulmonary artery, are attached to the heart in the wrong locations). Anesthetizing a patient this small for surgeries this big requires the utmost in skill and nerve.
  1. Acute anaphylaxis. Picture a patient’s blood pressure suddenly dropping to near zero and their airway passages constricting in a severe acute asthmatic attack. Immediate diagnosis is paramount, because intravenous epinephrine therapy will reverse most anaphylactic insults, and no other treatment is likely to be effective.
  1. Malignant Hyperthermia. Picture an emergency where an anesthetized patient’s temperature unexpectedly rises to over 104 degrees Fahrenheit due to hypermetabolic acidotic chemical changes in the patient’s skeletal muscles. The disease requires rapid diagnosis and treatment with the antidote dantrolene, as well as acute medical measures to decrease temperature, acidosis, and high blood potassium levels which can otherwise be fatal.
  1. An intraoperative myocardial infarction (heart attack). Picture an anesthetized 60-year-old patient who develops a sudden drop in their blood pressure due to failed pumping of their heart. This can occur because of an occluded coronary artery or a severe abnormal rhythm of their heart. Otherwise known as cardiogenic shock, this syndrome can lead to cardiac arrest unless the heart is supported with the precise correct amount of medications to increase the pumping function or improve the arrhythmia.
  1. Any massive trauma patient with injuries both to their airway and to their major vessels. Picture a motorcycle accident victim with a bloodied, smashed-in face and a blood pressure of near zero due to hemorrhage. The placement of an airway tube can be extremely difficult because of the altered anatomy of the head and neck, and the management of the circulation is urgent because of the empty heart and great vessels secondary to acute bleeding.
  1. The syndrome of “can’t intubate, can’t ventilate.” You’re the anesthesiologist. Picture any patient to whom you’ve just induced anesthesia, and your attempt to insert the tracheal breathing tube is impossible due to the patient’s anatomy. Next you attempt to ventilate oxygen into the patient’s lungs via a mask and bag, and you discover that you are unable to ventilate any adequate amount of oxygen. The beep-beep-beep of the oxygen saturation monitor is registering progressively lower notes, and the oximeter alarms as the patient’s oxygen saturation drops below 90%. If repeated attempts at intubation and ventilation fail and the patient’s oxygen saturation drops below 85-90% and remains low, the patient will incur hypoxic brain damage within 3 – 5 minutes. This situation is the worst-case scenario that every anesthesia professional must avoid if possible. If it does occur, the anesthesia professional or a surgical colleague must be ready and prepared to insert a surgical airway (cricothyroidotomy or tracheostomy) into the neck before enough time passes to cause irreversible brain damage.

So goes my list of Top 10 List of Stressful Anesthesia situations. If you’re an anesthesia professional, what other cases would you include on the list? Which cases would you delete? How many of these situations have you personally experienced?

This Top 10 Stressful Situations in Anesthesiology list should be enough to convince you that “Anesthesiologist” belongs on everyone’s Most Stressful Jobs list.

I would reassemble the Top 10 List of Most Stressful Jobs to be as follows:

The Anesthesia Consultant’s List of Top 10 Most Stressful Jobs

  1. Enlisted military personnel
  2. Military general in wartime
  3. Police Officer
  4. Firefighter
  5. Anesthesiologist
  6. Surgeon
  7. Emergency Room Physician
  8. Airline Pilot
  9. Air Traffic Controller
  10. Corporate Chief Executive Officer

AIRWAY LAWSUITS

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 2 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

At weddings you’ll often hear a Bible verse that reads, “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13) A parallel verse in the bible of acute care medicine would read, “Emergencies are managed by airway, breathing, and circulation. But the greatest of these is airway.” The objective of this column is to help you avoid airway lawsuits.

 

Every health care professional learns the mantra of airway-breathing-circulation. Anesthesiologists are the undisputed champions of airway management. This column is to alert you that avoiding even one airway disaster during your career is vital.

Following my first deposition in a medical-legal case years ago, I was descending in the elevator and a man in a suit asked me what I was doing in the building that day. I told him I’d just testified as an expert witness. He asked me what my specialty was, and I told him I was an anesthesiologist. The whistled through his teeth and smirked. “Anesthesia,” he said, “Huge settlements!”

I’ve consulted on many medical malpractice cases which involved death or brain damage, and airway mishaps were the most common etiology. It’s possible for death or brain damage to occur secondary to cardiac problems (e.g. shock due to heart attacks or hypovolemia), or breathing problems (e.g. acute bronchospasm or a tension pneumothorax), but most deaths or brain damage involved airway problems. Included are failed intubations of the trachea, cannot-intubate-cannot-ventilate situations, botched tracheostomies, inadvertent or premature extubations, aspiration of gastric contents into unprotected airways, or airways lost during sedation by non-anesthesia professionals.

Google the keywords “anesthesia malpractice settlement,” and you’ll find multiple high-profile anesthesia closed claims, most of them related to airway disasters. Examples from such a Google search include:

  1. The Chicago Daily Law Bulletin featured a multimillion-dollar verdict secured by the family of a woman who died after being improperly anesthetized for hip surgery. The anesthesiologist settled prior to trial, resulting in the family being awarded a total of $11.475 million for medical negligence. The 61-year-old mother and wife was hospitalized in Chicago for elective hip replacement surgery.  Because of a prior bad experience with the insertion of a breathing tube for general anesthesia, she requested a spinal anesthetic. Her anesthesiologist had trouble inserting a needle for the spinal anesthesia, so he went ahead with general anesthesia. The anesthesiologist was then unable, after several attempts, to insert the breathing tube. He planned to breathe for her through a mask and let her wake up to breathe on her own.  A second anesthesiologist came into the room and decided to attempt the intubation. He tried but was also unsuccessful. Finally, a third anesthesiologist came into the operating room and tried inserting the breathing tube several times. He too was unsuccessful. All of the attempts at inserting the tube caused the tissues in her airway to swell shut, blocking off oxygen and causing cardiac arrest. She suffered severe brain damage and died.
  2. $20 Million Verdict Reached in Medical Malpractice Lawsuit Against Anesthesiologist. A jury returned a $20 million verdict in an anesthesia medical malpractice lawsuit filed by the family of a woman who died during surgery when bile entered her lungs. The wrongful death lawsuit alleged that the anesthetists failed to identify that the victim had risk factors for breathing fluid into her lungs, despite the information being available in her medical record. The victim was preparing to receive exploratory surgery to determine the cause of severe stomach pains when she received the anesthesia. Once anesthetized, she began breathing bile into her lungs. She then later died. The jury awarded $20 million in favor of the plaintiff.
  3. A $35 million medical malpractice settlement was matched by only one other as the largest settlement for a malpractice case in Illinois, and the most ever paid by the County of Cook for a settlement of a personal injury case. The client, a 28-year-old woman, suffered severe brain damage from the deprivation of oxygen resulting from the failure of an anesthesiologist to properly secure an intubation tube. The client, immediately following the occurrence, was in a persistent vegetative state from which the likelihood of recovery was virtually nil. Miraculously, she regained much of her cognitive functioning, although still suffering from significant physiological deficits requiring attendant care for the rest of her life.
  4. Anesthesia Death Results in $2 Million Settlement: 36-Year-Old Man Dies From Anesthesia Mishap Following Elective Hernia Repair Surgery. The plaintiff’s decedent was a 36-year-old man who died secondary to respiratory complications following an elective hernia repair. During the pre-operative anesthesia evaluation, the defendant noted the patient had never been intubated and had required a tracheostomy for a previous surgery. The defendant decided to administer general endotracheal anesthesia with rapid sequence induction. The surgery itself was without incident. Following extubation, the patient began to have difficulty breathing. The patient desaturated. The surgeon was called back to the OR to perform  a tracheostomy, however, there was no improvement in the patient’s oxygenation and he continued to have asystole. Subsequently, he went into respiratory arrest and coded. The code and CPR were unsuccessful, and the patient was pronounced dead.

Per Miller’s Anesthesia, failure to secure a patent airway can result in hypoxic brain injury or death in only a few minutes. Analysis of the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) Closed Claims Project database shows that the development of an airway emergency increases the odds of death or brain damage by 15-fold. Although the proportion of claims attributable to airway-related complications has decreased over the past thirty years since the adoption of pulse oximetry, end-tidal-CO2 monitoring, and the ASA Difficult Airway Algorithm, airway complications are still the second-most common cause of malpractice claims. (Miller’s Anesthesia, Chapter 55, Management of the Adult Airway, 2014).

In 2005, in the ASA-published Management of the Difficult Airway: A Closed Claims Analysis (Petersen GN, et al, Anesthesiology 2005; 103:33–9), the authors examined 179 claims for difficult airway management between 1985 and 1999. The timing of the difficult airway claims was: 67% upon induction, 15% during surgery, 12% at extubation, and 5% during recovery. Death or brain damage during induction of anesthesia decreased 35% in 1993–1999 compared with 1985–1992, but death or brain damage from difficult airway management during the maintenance, emergence, and recovery periods did not decrease during this second period. There is no denominator to compare with the numerator of the number of closed claims, so the prevalence of airway disasters was unknown.

Awake intubation is touted as the best strategy for elective management of the difficult airway for surgical patients. Fiberoptic scope intubation of the trachea in an awake, spontaneously ventilating patient is the gold standard for the management of the difficult airway. (Miller’s Anesthesia, Chapter 55, Management of the Adult Airway, 2014). Awake intubation is a useful tool to avert airway disaster on the oral anesthesiology board examination. Dr. Michael Champeau, one of my partners, has been an American Board of Anesthesiology Senior Examiner for over two decades. He tells me that oral board examinees choose awake intubation for nearly every difficult airway. This is wise–it’s hard to harm a patient who is awake and breathing on their own. Is the same strategy as easily implemented outside of the examination room? In actual clinical practice, an awake intubation may be a tougher sell. Awake intubations are time-consuming, require patience and understanding from the surgical team, and can be unpleasant to a patient who will be conscious until the endotracheal tube reaches the trachea–an event which can cause marked coughing, gagging, hypertension and tachycardia in an under-anesthetized person. As anesthesia providers, we perform hundreds of asleep intubations per year, and only a very small number of awake intubations. Inertia exists pushing anesthesia providers to go ahead and inject the propofol on most patients, rather than to take the time to topically anesthetize the airway and perform an awake intubation. But if you’ve ever lost the airway on induction and wound up with a “cannot intubate-cannot ventilate” patient, you’ll understand the wisdom in opting for an awake intubation on a difficult airway patient.

I refer you to Chapter 55 of Miller’s Anesthesia for a detailed treatise on the assessment and management of airways, which is beyond the scope of this column. In addition to the reading of Chapter 55, I offer the following clinical pearls based on my 30 years of practice and my experience at reviewing malpractice cases involving airway tragedies:

  1. Become skilled at assessing each patient’s airway prior to anesthesia induction. Pertinent information may be in the old chart or the patient’s oral history as well as in the physical examination. Red flags include: previous reports of difficulty passing a breathing tube, a previous tracheostomy scar, morbid obesity, a full beard, a receding mandible, inability to fully open the mouth, rigidity of the cervical spine, airway tumors or masses, or congenital airway deformities.
  2. Learn the ASA Difficult Algorithm and be prepared to follow it. (asahq.org/…/ASAHQ/…/standards-guidelines/practice-guidelines-for- management-of-the-difficult-airway.pdf‎).
  3. Become skilled with all critical airway skills, particularly mask ventilation, standard laryngoscopy, video laryngoscopy, placement of a laryngeal mask airway (LMA), fiberoptic intubation through an LMA, and awake fiberoptic laryngoscopy.
  4. Read the airway strategy recommended in the Appendix to Richard Jaffe’s Anesthesiologist’s Manual of Surgical Procedures, an approach which utilizes a cascade of the three critical skills of (A)standard laryngoscopy, (B)video laryngoscopy, and (C)fiberoptic intubation through an LMA. For a concise summary of this approach read my column Avoiding Airway Disasters in Anesthesia (http://theanesthesiaconsultant.com/2014/03/14/avoiding-airway-disasters-in-anesthesia).
  5. If you seriously ponder whether awake intubation is indicated, you probably should perform one. You don’t want to wind up with a hypoxic patient, anesthetized and paralyzed, who you can neither intubate nor ventilate.
  6. If you’re concerned about a difficult intubation or a difficult mask ventilation, get help before you begin the case. Enlist a second anesthesia provider to assist you with the induction/intubation.
  7. Take great care when you remove an airway tube on any patient with a difficult airway. Don’t extubate until vital signs are normal, the patient is awake, the patient opens their eyes, and the patient is demonstrating effective spontaneous respirations. An airway that was routine at the beginning of a surgery may be compromised at the end of surgery, due to head and neck edema, airway bleeding, or swollen airway structures, e.g. due to a long anesthetic with a prolonged time in Trendelenburg position.
  8. If you’re a non-anesthesia professional administering conscious sedation, never administer a general anesthetic sedative such as propofol. A combination of narcotic and benzodiazepines can be easily reversed by the antagonists naloxone and flumazenil if oversedation occurs. There is no reversal for propofol. Airway compromise from oversedation due to propofol must be managed by mask ventilation by an airway expert.

In its 1999 report, To Err Is Human:  Building a Safer Health System, the Institute of Medicine recognized anesthesiology as the only medical profession to reduce medical errors and increase patient safety. With the pulse oximeter, end-tidal-CO2 monitor, a myriad of airway devices, and the Difficult Airway Algorithm, the practice of anesthesia in the twenty-first century is safer than ever before. Let’s keep it that way.

Faith, hope, and love. The greatest of these is love.

Airway, breathing, and circulation. The greatest of these is airway. Your patient’s airway.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

IS ANESTHESIA A CUSHY SPECIALTY?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Is anesthesia worthy of the House of God‘s assessment that it’s a cushy medical specialty? My answer, after thirty years of anesthesia practice, is … it depends.

Cover image of The House of God

Samuel Shem’s classic novel/satire of medicine, The House of God (published in 1978, more than two million copies sold), follows protagonist Dr. Roy Basch as he struggles through his year as an internal medicine intern. A second physician recommends Basch switch careers to one of six no-patient-contact specialties: Rays, Gas, Path, Derm, Eyes, or Psych. These names translate to radiology, anesthesia, pathology, dermatology, ophthalmology, and psychiatry. These specialties are touted as lower stress choices with superior lifestyles, where time with sick patients is minimized and the physician is more likely to be happy.

Is this true? Is anesthesia worthy of Samuel Shem’s assessment that it’s a cushy specialty?

My answer, after thirty years of anesthesia practice, is … it depends.

Let’s examine each of the six specialties regarding their perceived advantages:

• Radiology involves a career of peering at digital images of X-rays, MRIs, CT scans, or ultrasound studies. Patient contact is minimal. Because many of these tests are ordered in emergency rooms at all hours of the night, on-call radiologists work long hours and endure sleepless nights. As well, the subspecialty of Invasive Radiology has become a hands-on field that requires as much patient contact as most surgical specialties.
• Pathology involves a career of peering through a microscope, running a clinical lab to determine blood and urine chemistry results, or performing autopsies. Most of pathology requires zero contact with living patients. Most pathology work is done in daylight hours, and loss of sleep is unusual.
• Dermatology involves a career of seeing a multitude of patients (think 80 – 100 per day) in a busy clinic practice. Patient volume and patient contact are high. Each clinic visit is brief because only the specific skin lesions in question are fair game for physician-patient interrogation. Hospitalized patients are uncommon, there are few emergencies, and loss of sleep is unusual.
• Ophthalmology involves an office practice of examining the vision and eyes of patients, as well as an operating room practice of performing cataract, retinal, or corneal surgeries. Other than an occasional eye trauma surgery at a late hour, loss of sleep for ophthalmologists is unusual.
• Psychiatry involves an outpatient practice of verbal therapy and/or prescribing oral medications (e.g. antidepressants, anti-anxiety, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder meds). Inpatient psychiatry is usually limited to patients with severe depression and psychotic diseases. Most emergencies are limited to patients with after-hours suicidal ideation or attempts. Loss of sleep is unusual.
• Anesthesiology involves providing unconsciousness and medical management to patients during all types of surgical interventions. Surgeries occur at all hours of the day and night. Loss of sleep is common, and job stress during select cases can be extreme. Let’s examine lifestyle issues of anesthesia practice in more detail:

An anesthesiologist and his or her awake surgical patient are only together for only 15 minutes prior to induction of anesthesia, during which time they exchange information on medical history and informed consent. This brief duration doesn’t exactly qualify for The House of God’s no-patient-contact list, but anesthesia does qualify as very-little-awake-patient contact. Minimal time with conscious patients appeals to physicians who don’t relish prolonged face-to-face patient interaction.

An image of your anesthesiologist playing tennis or golf and then waltzing into the operating room at leisure to do a simple surgery is mistaken. The presence of an anesthesiologist is imperative for nearly every emergency procedure. All emergency medical care follows the guideline of A-B-C, or Airway-Breathing-Circulation, and anesthesiologists are airway specialists nonpareil. Emergency room attendings and head and neck surgeons have certain airway skills, but no other specialty has the depth of airway expertise that anesthesiologists own. An anesthesiologist provides care for 500–1000 patients per year, and every one of these patients requires acute management of the airway to assure safe oxygenation and breathing.

Trauma surgery, childbirth, acute surgical disease from the emergency room, and organ transplant surgery are as common at night as in the daytime. An on-call anesthesiologist at a busy community hospital may arrive at 6:30 a.m., do seven or eight surgical anesthetics which last until dusk, and then remain in the hospital all night to perform several epidural anesthetics on laboring women, anesthetize an 80-year-old woman for surgery to relieve a bowel obstruction, and replace an endotracheal tube in a struggling patient in the intensive care unit as the sun comes up the following day. An on-call anesthesiologist at a university hospital may arrive at 6:30 a.m. and attend to a complex liver-transplant surgery which lasts 20 hours and concludes at 3 a.m. A cushy specialty? Hardly.

A lifestyle advantage for anesthesiologists is that we can work hard and play hard. It’s possible for an anesthesiologist to take weeks or months off at a time if their employer or anesthesia group approves. There’s no chronic patient care/patient follow up, no clinic overhead, and no clinic employee overhead. For these reasons an anesthesiologist can schedule multiple weeks without work or income more easily than a clinic doctor can. For these reasons it’s also possible for an anesthesiologist to work part time, i.e. two or three days each week. This scheduling flexibility is an excellent lifestyle advantage, and for this reason my answer to whether anesthesia is a cushy specialty is … it depends.

Some anesthesiologists choose to spend their career outside the operating room. Some specialize in pain management and see patients in outpatient pain clinics—selected patients are taken to the operating room non-urgently to receive pain-injection procedures such as epidural steroid injections, nerve blocks, or pain pump insertions. A small number of anesthesiologists run preoperative assessment clinics where they assess the medical status of patients prior to surgery. A small number of anesthesiologists supervise intensive care units and manage critically patients who require ventilators, cardio-active medications, and anesthesia sedation infusions.

I’d like to leave you with one image imprinted in your mind—that of an anesthesiologist toiling over an ill patient at 2 a.m. in a hospital. The patient may have survived a car crash, suffered a ruptured appendix, be delivering twin babies, or be the recipient of a lung transplant. Wherever there’s a sick patient who needs acute supervised unconsciousness, there’s an anesthesiologist present. In words John Steinbeck wrote at the conclusion of The Grapes of Wrath, Tom Joad tells his mother,

“I’ll be all around in the dark – I’ll be everywhere.
Wherever you can look – wherever there’s a fight, so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there.
Wherever there’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.
I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad.
I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry and they know supper’s ready, and when the people are eatin’ the stuff they raise and livin’ in the houses they build – I’ll be there, too.”

This prompts me to pen parallel text regarding my specialty, entitled
Tom Joad the Anesthesiologist:

I’ll be all around in the dark—I’ll be everywhere.
Wherever you can look—wherever there’s a motorcycle accident, a Cesarean section, a heart transplant, I’ll be there.
Wherever there’s a cop dragging a knifed-up gang member into the E.R., I’ll be there.
I’ll be there when the surgeon screams and when the new mother laughs,
When the 100-year-old gets his hernia mended and when the 4-year-old gets his tonsils out—I’ll be there, too.
Ma, it’s just what I do.
It’s what we all do.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

THE PERIOPERATIVE SURGICAL HOME HAS EXISTED FOR YEARS

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

The American Society of Anesthesiologists is supporting an expansion of the role of anesthesiologists in the delivery of perioperative care in hospitals. This proposed model is called the Perioperative Surgical Home. The American Society of Anesthesiologists defines the Perioperative Surgical Home as “a patient centered, innovative model of delivering health care during the entire patient surgical/procedural experience; from the time of the decision for surgery until the patient has recovered and returned to the care of his or her Patient Centered Medical Home or primary care provider.”

 

It’s a sound idea, and it resembles a model that’s existed for decades outside the hospital. In an outpatient surgery center the Perioperative Surgical Home concept is carried out by an anesthesiologist who is the Medical Director. I can speak to this, as I’ve been the Medical Director at a busy surgery center only minutes from Stanford University in downtown Palo Alto, for the past 12 years.

A surgery center Medical Director is responsible for:

  • All preoperative matters, including preoperative medical assessment of patients, scheduling of block times, surgical cases, anesthesia assignments, and creation of protocols,
  • All intraoperative matters, including quality issues, efficiency and turnover of cases, and the economics of running a profitable set of operating rooms, and
  • All postoperative matters, including overseeing Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) nursing care, post anesthesia medical decisions, and supervision of post-discharge follow up with patients.

All medical problems including complications, hospital transfers, and patient complaints, are routed through the anesthesiologist Medical Director.

A key difference between a surgery center and a hospital is scale. A busy hospital has dozens of operating rooms, hundreds of surgeries per day, and hundreds of inpatient beds. No one Medical Director can oversee all of this every day—it takes a team. At Stanford University Medical Center the anesthesia department is known as the Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine. The word “Perioperative” is appropriate, because anesthesia practice involves medical care before, during, and after surgery. A team of anesthesiologists is uniquely qualified to oversee preoperative assessment, intraoperative management, and post-operative pain control and medical care in the hospital setting, just as the solitary Medical Director does in a surgery center setting.

A second key difference between a surgery center and a hospital is that medical care is more complex in a hospital. Patients are sicker, invasive surgeries disturb physiology to a greater degree, and patients stay overnight after surgery, often with significant pain control or intensive care requirements. Again, a team of physicians from a Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine is best suited to supervise management of these problems.

The greatest hurdle to instituting the Perioperative Surgical Home model is pre-existing economic reality. In a hospital, other departments such as surgery, internal medicine, radiology, cardiology, pulmonology, and nursing are intimately involved in the perioperative management of surgery patients. Each of these departments has staff, a budget, income, and incentives related to maintaining their current role. Surgeons intake patients through their preoperative clinics, and may regard themselves as captains of the ship for all medical care on their own patients. Internal medicine doctors are called on for preoperative medical clearance on patients, and thus compete with anesthesia preoperative clinics. The internal medicine department includes hospitalists, inpatient doctors who may be involved in the post-operative management of inpatients. Invasive radiologists perform multiple non-invasive surgical procedures. Like their surgical colleagues, they may see themselves as decision makers for all medical care on their own patients. Cardiologists manage coronary care units and intensive care units in some hospitals, and may feel threatened by anesthesiologists intent on taking over their territory. Pulmonologists manage coronary care units and intensive care units in some hospitals, and may feel threatened by anesthesiologists intent on taking over their territory. Nurses are involved in all phases of perioperative care. If the chain of command among physicians changes, nurses must be willing partners of and participants with such change.

Why has the anesthesiology leadership role of a Medical Director evolved naturally at surgery centers while the Perioperative Surgical Home idea has to be sold to hospitals? At surgery centers the competing financial incentives of surgeons, internal medicine doctors, radiologists, pulmonologists, cardiologists, and nurses are minimal. In a freestanding surgery center, surgeons want to be able to depart for their offices following procedures, and welcome the skills that anesthesiologists bring to managing any medical complications that arise. Internal medicine doctors have no significant on-site role in surgery centers, although they are helpful office consultants for the anesthesiologist/Medical Director in assembling preoperative clearance for outpatients. Radiologists have no significant on-site role at most surgery centers—if they do perform invasive radiology procedures on outpatients, they too welcome the skills that anesthesiologists bring to managing medical complications that arise. Because there are no intensive care units at a surgery center, there is no role for pulmonary or cardiology specialists. Nursing leadership at a surgery center works hand-in-hand with the Medical Director to assure optimal nursing care of all patients.

Hospital administrators anticipate penetration of the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model for payment of medical care by insurers. In the ACO model, a medical center receives a predetermined bundled payment for each surgical procedure. The hospital and all specialties caring for that patient negotiate what percentage of that ACO payment each will receive. A Perioperative Surgical Home may or may not simplify this task. You can bet anesthesiologists see the Perioperative Surgical Home as a means to increase their piece of the pie. Ideally the Perioperative Surgical Home will be a means to streamline medical care, decrease costs, and increase profit for the hospital and all departments. Anesthesiologists are rightly concerned that if they don’t take the lead in this process, some other specialty will.

Establishing the Perioperative Surgical Home is an excellent opportunity for anesthesiologists to facilitate patient care in multiple aspects of hospital medicine. To make this dream a reality across multiple medical centers, anesthesiology leadership must demonstrate excellent public relations skills to convince administrators and chairpeople of the multiple other specialties. I expect data on outcomes improvement or cost-control to be slow and inadequate to proactively provoke this change. It will take significant lobbying, convincing, and promoting. Change will require a leap of faith for a hospital, and such change will only be accomplished by anesthesia leadership that captures the confidence of the hospital CEO and the chairs of multiple other departments.

I’m impressed by the adoption of the Perioperative Surgical Home at the University of California at Irvine. I’ve listened to Zev Kain, MD, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Medicine lecture, and I’ve met him personally. He’s the prototype of the charismatic, intelligent, and convincing physician needed to convince others that the Perioperative Surgical Home is the model of the future.(http://www.anesthesiology.uci.edu/clinical_surgicalhome.shtml)

I expect the transition to the Perioperative Surgical Home to occur more easily in university or HMO hospitals than in community hospitals. It will be easier for academic or HMO chairmen to assign new roles to salaried physicians than it will be for community hospitals to control the behavior of multiple private physicians.

Anesthesiologists were leaders in improving perioperative safety by the discovery and adoption of pulse oximetry and end-tidal carbon dioxide monitoring. Can anesthesiologists lead the way again by championing the adoption of Perioperative Surgical Home on a wide scale? Time will tell. Is the Perioperative Surgical Home an optimal way to take care of surgical patients before, during, and after surgeries? I believe it is, just as the Medical Director is a successful model of how an anesthesiologist can optimally lead an outpatient surgery center. Those lobbying for the Perioperative Surgical Home would be wise to examine the successful role of anesthesiologist Medical Directors who’ve led outpatient surgery centers for years. The stakes are high. As intraoperative care becomes safer and the role of nurse anesthesia in the United States threatens to expand, it’s imperative that physician anesthesiologists assert their expertise outside the operating room.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

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Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

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HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE ME TO WAKE UP FROM GENERAL ANESTHESIA?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 133 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

One of the most frequent questions I hear from patients before surgery is, “How long will it take me to wake up from general anesthesia?”

 

The answer is, “It depends.”

Your wake up from general anesthesia depends on:

  1. What drugs the anesthesia provider uses
  2. How long your surgery lasts
  3. How healthy, how old, and how slender you are
  4. What type of surgery you are having
  5. The skill level of your anesthesia provider

In best circumstances you’ll be awake and talking within 5 to 10 minutes from the time your anesthesia provider turns off the anesthetic. Let’s look at each of the five factors above regarding your wake up from general anesthesia depends on:.

  1. YOUR WAKE UP FROM ANESTHESIA DEPENDS ON WHAT DRUGS THE ANESTHETIST USES. The effects of modern anesthetic drugs wear off fast.
  • The most common intravenous anesthetic hypnotic drug is propofol. Propofol levels in your blood drop quickly after administration of the drug is terminated, resulting in rapid awakening.
  • The most common inhaled anesthetic drugs are sevoflurane, desflurane, and nitrous oxide. Each of these gases are exhaled from the body quickly after their administration is terminated, resulting in rapid awakening.
  • The most commonly used intravenous narcotic is fentanyl. Fentanyl levels in your blood drop quickly after administration of the drug is terminated, resulting in rapid awakening.
  • The most commonly used intravenous anti-anxiety drug is midazolam (Versed). Midazolam levels in your blood drop quickly after administration of the drug is terminated, resulting in rapid awakening.
  1. YOUR WAKE UP FROM ANESTHESIA DEPENDS ON HOW LONG YOUR SURGERY LASTS
  • The shorter your surgery lasts, the less injectable and inhaled drugs you will receive.
  • Lower doses and shorter exposure times to anesthetic drugs lead to a faster wake up time.
  1. YOUR WAKE UP FROM ANESTHESIA DEPENDS ON HOW HEALTHY, HOW OLD, AND HOW SLENDER YOU ARE
  • Healthy patients with fit hearts, lungs, and brains wake up sooner
  • Young patients wake up quicker than geriatric patients
  • Slender patients wake up quicker than very obese patients
  1. YOUR WAKE UP FROM ANESTHESIA DEPENDS ON WHAT TYPE OF SURGERY YOU ARE HAVING
  • A minor surgery with minimal post-operative pain, such a hammertoe repair or a tendon repair on your thumb, will lead to a faster wake up.
  • A complex surgery such as an open-heart procedure or a liver transplant will lead to a slower wake up.
  1. YOUR WAKE UP FROM ANESTHESIA DEPENDS ON THE SKILL LEVEL OF YOUR ANESTHETIST
  • Like any profession, the longer the duration of time a practitioner has rehearsed his or her art, the better they will perform. An experienced pilot is likely to perform smoother landings of his aircraft than a novice. An experienced anesthesiologist is likely to wake up his or her patients more quickly than a novice.
  • There are multiple possible recipes or techniques for an anesthetic plan for any given surgery. An advantageous recipe may include local anesthesia into the surgical site or a regional anesthetic block to minimize post-operative pain, rather than administering higher doses of intravenous narcotics or sedatives which can prolong wake up times. Experienced anesthesia providers develop reliable time-tested recipes for rapid wake ups.
  • Although I can’t site any data, I believe the additional training and experience of a board-certified anesthesiologist physician is an advantage over the training and experience of a certified nurse anesthetist.

YOUR WAKE UP FROM ANESTHESIA: EXAMPLE TIMELINE FOR A MORNING SURGERY

Let’s say you’re scheduled to have your gall bladder removed at 7:30 a.m. tomorrow morning. This would be a typical timeline for your day:

6:00            You arrive at the operating room suite. You check in with front desk and nursing staff.

7:00             You meet your anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist. Your anesthesia provider reviews your chart, examines your airway, heart, and lungs, and explains the anesthetic plan and options to you. After you consent, he or she starts an intravenous line in your arm.

7:15             Your anesthesia provider administers intravenous midazolam (Versed) into your IV, and you become more relaxed and sedated within one minute. Your anesthesia provider wheels your gurney into the operating room, and you move yourself from the gurney to the operating room table. Because of the amnestic effect of the midazolam, you probably will not remember any of this.

7:30             Your anesthesia provider induces general anesthesia by injecting intravenous propofol and fentanyl, places a breathing tube into your windpipe, and administers inhaled sevoflurane and intravenous propofol to keep you asleep.

7:40            Your anesthesia provider, your surgeon, and the nurse move your body into optimal position on the operating room table. The nurse preps your skin with antiseptic, and the scrub tech frames your abdomen with sterile paper drapes. The surgeons wash their hands and don sterile gowns and gloves. The nurses prepare the video equipment so the surgeon can see inside your abdomen with a laparoscope during surgery.

8:00            The surgery begins.

8:45             The surgery ends. Your anesthesia provider turns off the anesthetics sevoflurane and propofol.

8:55             You open your eyes, and your anesthesia provider removes the breathing tube from your windpipe.

9:05             Your anesthesia provider transports you to the Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) on the original gurney you started on.

9:10            Your anesthesia provider explains your history to the PACU nurse, who will care for you for the next hour or two. The anesthesia provider then returns to the pre-operative area to meet their next patient. Your anesthesia provider is still responsible for your orders and your medical care until you leave the PACU. He or she is available on cell phone or beeper at all times. No family members are allowed in the PACU.

10:40            You are discharged from the PACU to your inpatient room, or to home if you are fit enough to leave the hospital or surgery center.

YOUR WAKE UP FROM ANESTHESIA . . . TO REVIEW:

  1. Even though the surgery only lasted 45 minutes, you were in the operating room for one hour and 35 minutes.
  2. It took you 10 minutes to awaken, from 8:45 to 8:55.
  3. Even though you were awake and talking at 8:55, you were unlikely to remember anything from that time.
  4. You probably had no memory of the time from the midazolam administration at 7:15 until after you’d reached in the PACU, when your consciousness level returned toward normal.

I refer you to a related column AN ANESTHESIA PATIENT QUESTION: WHY DID IT TAKE ME SO LONG TO WAKE UP AFTER ANESTHESIA?”

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

LEARN MORE ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM BY CLICKING ON THE PICTURE BELOW:

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HOW TO PREPARE TO SAFELY INDUCE GENERAL ANESTHESIA IN TWO MINUTES

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

How do you prepare to induce general anesthesia in two minutes? You’re called to induce anesthesia for a patient being rushed to the operating room for emergency surgery. You arrive at the operating room only minutes before the patient is scheduled to arrive. I recommend you use the mnemonic M-A-I-D-S as a checklist to prepare yourself and your equipment.

 

 

M stands for MACHINE and MONITORS. Check out your anesthesia machine first. Determine the oxygen sources are intact, and that the circle system is airtight when the pop-off valve is closed and your thumb occludes the patient end of the circle. Make sure the anesthesia vaporizer liquid anesthetic level is adequate. Check out your routine monitors next. Determine that the oximeter, end-tidal gas monitor, blood pressure cuff, and EKG monitors are turned on and ready.

A stands for AIRWAY equipment. Make sure an appropriate-sized anesthesia mask is attached to the circle system. Determine that your laryngoscope light is in working order. Prepare an appropriate sized endotracheal tube with a stylet inside. Have appropriate-sized oral airways and a laryngeal mask airway (LMA) available in case the airway is difficult. Make sure you have a stethoscope so you can examine the patient’s heart and lungs.

I stands for IV. Have an IV line prepared, and have the equipment to start an IV ready if the patient presents without an intravenous line acceptable for induction of anesthesia.

D stands for DRUGS. At the minimum you’ll need an induction agent (e.g. propofol or etomidate) and a muscle relaxant (succinylcholine or rocuronium), each loaded into a syringe. You’ll need narcotics and perhaps a dose of midazolam as well. Cardiovascular drugs to raise or lower blood pressure will be available in your drug drawer or Pyxis machine.

S stands for SUCTION. Never start an anesthetic without a working suction catheter at hand. You must be ready to suction vomit or blood out of the airway acutely if the need arises.

For pediatric patients the M-A-I-D-S mnemonic is followed, but in addition the size of your anesthesia equipment must be tailored to the age of the patient. Let’s say your patient is 4 years old. For M=MACHINE, you may need a smaller volume ventilation bag and hoses. For M=MONITORS, you’ll need a smaller blood pressure cuff, a smaller oximeter probe, and a precordial stethoscope if you use one. For A=AIRWAY, you’ll need smaller endotracheal tubes and airways. For I=IV, you’ll need smaller IV catheters and IV bags.

As a last-second check before a pediatric anesthetic, I recommend you pull out each drawer on your anesthesia machine, and then on your anesthesia cart, one at a time. Scan the contents of each drawer to ascertain whether you need any of the equipment there before you begin your anesthetic.

If you have any suspicion that the patient’s airway is going to be difficult, I recommend you ask to have a video laryngoscope and a fiberoptic laryngoscope brought into the operating room.

Once the patient arrives, utilize time to assess the situation as any doctor does. Take a quick history and perform a pertinent exam of the vital signs, airway, heart, lungs, and also a brief neuro check. Assist in positioning the patient on the operating room table, supervise the placement of routine monitors, and begin preoxygenating the patient. Induce anesthesia when you are ready.

Never be coerced to rush an anesthesia induction if your anesthesia setup or the patient’s physiology are not optimized. And always utilize the mnemonic M-A-I-D-S as an anesthesia checklist to confirm that your equipment is ready.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at rick novak.com by clicking on the picture below:

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TEN REASONS NURSE ANESTHETISTS (CRNAs) WILL BE A MAJOR FACTOR IN ANESTHESIA CARE IN THE 21ST CENTURY

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 5 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

 

My debut novel, The Doctor and Mr. Dylan features a nurse anesthetist in the starring role of Mr. Dylan. Nurse anesthetists have provided anesthesia care in the United States for nearly 150 years, and CRNs will be a major factor in the future.

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In the beginning, anesthesia care for surgical patients was often provided by trained nurses under the supervision of surgeons, until the establishment of anesthesiology as a medical specialty in the U.S. in the 20th century.

Here are 10 reasons why certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) will be a major factor in anesthesia care in the 21st century:

1. Rural America is dependent on CRNAs to staff surgery in small towns underserved by MD anesthesiologists. CRNAs are involved in providing anesthesia services to about one-quarter of the American population that resides in rural and frontier areas of this country. Despite a significant rise in the number of anesthesiologists in recent years, there is no evidence that they are attracted to practice in rural areas.
2. Obamacare will increase the demand for mid-level healthcare providers, e.g. nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurse anesthetists. These mid-level providers are perceived as a cheaper alternative to MD health care.
3. Seventeen states have opted out of the requirement for physician supervision of CRNA anesthetics. These states are Iowa, Nebraska, Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Kansas, North Dakota, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Wisconsin, California, Colorado, and Kentucky. In these states, it’s legal for a CRNA to give an anesthetic without a supervising anesthesiologist or surgeon.
4. For cost-saving reasons, hospital administrators will consider the lower hourly rate charged by CRNAs to be a saving over MD anesthesia care rendered by anesthesiologists alone.
5. Future trends such as the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ Perioperative Surgical Home or bundled payments to Accountable Care Organizations will seek out the cheapest way to manage anesthetic populations. A likely economic model for a healthy patient population is the anesthesia care team, e.g. a 4:1 ratio of four CRNAs supervised by one MD anesthesiologist. This model can be used to staff four simultaneous surgeries on four healthy patients having simple surgical procedures. More complex procedures such as open-heart surgery, brain surgery, major vascular surgery, or emergency surgery will be best served by MD anesthesia care. Extremes of age (e.g. neonates or very old patients) and patients with significant medical comorbidities will be best served by MD anesthesia care.
6. Certain regions of the United States, particularly the South and the Midwest, are already entrenched with anesthesia care team models of 3:1 or 4:1 CRNA:MD staffing because of anesthesiologist preference. An MD anesthesiologist’s income can be augmented by supervising three or four operating rooms with multiple CRNAs simultaneously. These physicians will have little desire to rid themselves of nurse anesthetists and to personally do only one case at a time by themselves.
7. The American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) presents a strong, well-funded lobby which promotes the continuing and increasing role of CRNAs in medical care in the United States.
8. The educational cost for a registered nurse to become a CRNA is significantly less than the cost of training a board-certified MD anesthesiologist. The median cost of a public CRNA program is $40,195 and the median cost of a private program is $60,941, with an overall median of $51,720.
9. A registered nurse can significantly increase their income by becoming a CRNA. A registered nurse with one year of intensive care unit or post-anesthesia care unit experience can become a CRNA with 2-3 years of CRNA schooling. The average yearly salary of a CRNA in America in 2011 was $156,642.
10. The increasing starring role of CRNAs in American fiction ☺. (See The Doctor and Mr. Dylan, below)

After perusing this list one might ask, are CRNAs and anesthesiologists equals?
No, they are not. Anesthesiologists are doctors, and their training of four years of medical school followed by a minimum of four years of anesthesia residency makes them specialists in all aspects of surgical medicine.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists’ STATEMENT ON THE ANESTHESIA CARE TEAM states “Anesthesiology is the practice of medicine including, but not limited to, preoperative patient evaluation, anesthetic planning, intraoperative and postoperative care and the management of systems and personnel that support these activities. In addition, anesthesiology includes perioperative consultation, the management of coexisting disease, the prevention and management of untoward perioperative patient conditions, the treatment of acute and chronic pain, and the practice of critical care medicine. This care is personally provided by or directed by the anesthesiologist.” (Approved by the ASA House of Delegates on October 26, 1982, and last amended on October 16, 2013)

Doctor J H Silber’s landmark study from the University of Pennsylvania documented that both 30-day mortality and failure-to-rescue rates were lower when anesthesia care was supervised by anesthesiologists, as opposed to anesthesia care by unsupervised nurse anesthetists. This study has been widely discussed. The CRNA community dismissed the conclusions, citing that the Silber study was a retrospective study. In a Letter to the Editor published in Anesthesiology, Dr. Bruce Kleinman wrote regarding the Silber data, “this study could not and does not address the key issue: can CRNAs practice independently?”

I’m not a fan of CRNAs working alone without physician supervision. In both my expert witness practice and in the expert witness practice of my anesthesia colleagues, we find multiple adverse outcomes related to acute anesthetic care carried out by non-anesthesiologists.

CRNAs will play a significant role in American healthcare in the future. That significant role will be best played with an MD anesthesiologist at their right hand.

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

WHAT ONE QUESTION SHOULD YOU ASK TO DETERMINE IF A PATIENT IS ACUTELY ILL?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 3 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

What one question should you ask to determine whether a patient has a serious medical problem? What one question must you ask to determine whether urgent intervention is required?

Imagine this scenario: You’re an anesthesiologist giving anesthesia care in the operating room to your second patient of the day. The Post Anesthesia Care Unit (PACU) nurse calls you regarding your first patient who is in the PACU following appendectomy. The nurse says, “Your patient Mr. Jones is still nauseated and very sleepy. I’ve medicated him with ondansetron and metoclopramide as ordered, but he’s still nauseated and sleepy.”

That one question would be: “What are his vital signs?”(This is a bit of a trick question, since you are asking not one question, but four or five. It’s as if you’re down to your last request from the Genie from Aladdin’s lamp, and you’re wishing for more wishes. As Robin Williams’ Genie character said in Disney’s Aladdin, “Three wishes, to be exact. And ixnay on the wishing for more wishes. That’s all. Three. Uno, dos, tres. No substitutions, exchanges or refunds.” )

The traditional four vital signs are the blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and temperature. For anesthesiologists, surgeons, emergency room physicians, and ICU doctors, the fifth vital sign is the oxygen saturation or O2 sat. Some publications tout the pain score (on a 1-10 scale) as a fifth vital sign. While I subscribe to the pain score’s importance, it’s of less value in most acute care situations than the O2 saturation.

Let’s return to the patient scenario. You ask the nurse, “What are the patient’s vital signs?”

The nurse answers, “His heart rate is 48, his blood pressure is 88/55, his O2 sat is 100, and his respiratory rate is 16.”

You answer, “His heart rate is too low and so is his blood pressure. Let’s give him 0.5 mg atropine IV now.”

Five minutes later the nurse calls back. The heart rate increased to 72 and the blood pressure is 110/77. The patient’s symptoms resolved as the vital signs normalized.

Let’s look at a second scenario. You drop off a 48-year-old hysterectomy patient in the PACU. The patient is awake, and her initial vital signs are BP 120/64, pulse 100, respirations 18, and O2 saturation 99%. You return to the operating room to initiate care for your next patient for a laparoscopy. Thirty minutes later, the PACU nurse calls you to report your first patient has increasing abdominal discomfort. Her repeat vital signs are: BP 110/80, pulse 130, respirations 26, and O2 saturation 99%. You’re concerned an intra-abdominal complication is brewing. Five minutes later, the nurse reports a third set of vitals. The patient’s heart rate continues to rise to 140. Her blood pressure is now 82/40, her respirations are 30, and her skin has become cold and moist to the touch. She’s unable to speak coherently and is losing consciousness. You can not leave the patient you are anesthetizing, but you call a fellow anesthesiologist to evaluate the patient in person, and prepare her for emergent re-operation.

The patient’s initial vital signs were stable, but the downward trend of her vital signs were a harbinger of the serious complication. Eventually the symptoms of abdominal pain and decreasing consciousness appeared, and confirmed the diagnosis of intra-abdominal hemorrhage and impending shock. The increased heart rate, decreased blood pressure, and increased respiratory rate were red flags early on.

Abnormal vital signs can indicate that a patient is acutely ill. Equally important to the value of each vital sign is the temporal trend in the vital signs. A vital sign trend increasing or decreasing from the normal range can validate that the patient is becoming acutely ill.

You may be thinking, why is Dr. Novak telling me vital signs are important? Everybody know vital signs are, well … vital.

My message to you is to seek out the vital signs, all of them, as essential clues in all patients.

As anesthesiologists, we spend our entire intraoperative clinical career staring at a patient’s vital signs on a video screen. When the blood pressure goes up, we act. When the blood pressure goes down, we act. When the heart rate goes up, we act, and when the heart rate goes down, we act. When oxygen saturation trends downward, we act. Because most intraoperative patients are unconscious, the patient’s verbal history—the traditional clues regarding acute illness—are unavailable. We can not ask our patient questions to determine whether vital sign changes are associated with symptoms of chest pain, shortness of breath, or neurologic deficits. We’re accustomed to treating patients by normalizing their vital signs.

Other healthcare providers lack this perspective. Nurses and non-acute-care physicians such as family practitioners and internists can fill a patient’s history chock full of other details so thick that the vital signs are buried. The five or six vital sign numbers are often obscured in pages of text. Most physician and nursing notes in an electronic medical record (EMR) are lengthy, and are many are copied and pasted from previous encounters. Each patient interview is a quiz bowl of medical history answers. The five or six vital sign numbers are a needle in the haystack of a modern medical history. The EMR in a clinic or a hospital can serve to worsen this plight, as vital signs are recorded by nurses and entered into nursing documents on the computer, and treating physicians may have to dig to find the correct page that lists vital signs. One possible benefit of an EMR is a proposed safety system that requires, for any abnormal vital sign entered into the computer, the nurse to document they have verbally informed a physician of that abnormal value. This system would assure that abnormal values are never ignored, and that an MD will assess whether further diagnostic or therapeutic steps need to be taken.

Ferret out the vital signs. In my career as a clinical anesthesiologist and anesthesia expert witness, I can’t recall one significant complication that wasn’t foretold by an increased or decreased heart rate, blood pressure, respiratory rate, or temperature, a decreased O2 saturation, or an increased pain score.

Keep your eye on the vitals, and keep your patients out of trouble.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

SHOULD PHYSICIANS BE TESTED FOR DRUGS AND ALCOHOL?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

An 60-year-old man has a heart attack in the middle of an emergency abdominal surgery at 11:00 pm and dies two hours later. Should the anesthesiologist submit to a drug test to seek out alcohol or drug ingestion that could have made her performance impaired?

Discussion: In the 2012 movie Flight, Denzel Washington stars as a commercial airline pilot addicted to alcohol and cocaine, who crashes his airplane while he is intoxicated. Analogies between aviation and anesthesia are commonplace. Both involve takeoffs, landings, and varying cruising times between the two. Both are generally quite safe, but on occasion disastrous accidents occur.

Pilots are required to submit to random drug testing and to testing following accidents. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandated drug and alcohol testing of safety-sensitive aviation employees in the Omnibus Transportation Employees Testing Act of 1991 to help protect the public and keep the skies safe.

Proposition 46 was a 2014 California legal initiative that proposed similar random drug testing of physicians and drug testing following critical sentinel events. Prop 46 was on the ballot for the November 2014 general election, and was soundly defeated. This proposition was noteworthy for bundling the drug-testing proposal with an additional proposal that would increase the maximum pain and suffering malpractice reward from $250,000 per case to $1,100,000 per case. Prop 46 was funded and supported by trial lawyers who sought to raise the ceiling on pain and suffering awards they could win in medical malpractice suits in California.

This malpractice award increase proposed by trial lawyers was viewed as a money grab, and was unpopular with voters. Because of concerns with increasing malpractice costs and health care costs, Prop 46 was defeated.

But what if Prop 46 had solely been about drug-testing physicians? Would it have a better chance of passing? I have no crystal ball, but my guess is that yes, it would have had a better chance of passing. According to the September 13, 2014 edition of the Los Angeles Times, the component of Prop 46 that required random drug and alcohol testing of doctors was popular among those surveyed: 68% of likely voters were in favor of it, while 25% were opposed.

In the August 1, 2014 issue of the New York Times, Adam Nagourney wrote “At a time when random drug testing is part of the job for pilots, train operators, police officers and firefighters—to name a few—one high-profile line of work has managed to remain exempt: doctors. That may be about to change. California would become the first state to require doctors to submit to random drug and alcohol tests under a measure to appear on the ballot this November. The proposal, which drew approval in early focus groups, was inserted as a sweetener in a broad initiative pushed by trial lawyers that also includes an unrelated measure to raise the state’s financial cap on medical malpractice awards for the first time since 1975, to $1.1 million from $250,000.”

The same New York Times article states, “Backers of Proposition 46 have begun putting out a steady stream of news releases about cases involving doctors with a history of drug and alcohol abuse…. ‘It’s crucial: I can’t believe we haven’t done this already,’ said Arthur L. Caplan, a medical ethicist at New York University. ‘But the idea that we wouldn’t be screening our surgeon, our anesthesiologist or our oncologist when we are going to screen our bus drivers and our airline pilots strikes me as ethically indefensible.’” In the same article, Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, opines that there should be random drug testing across the medical profession, given the access in hospitals to controlled substances. “I don’t think that a carve-out when it comes to the medical field is sensible public policy,” he said. “No one should be above suspicion or below suspicion. I think we all need to play by similar rules.”

In a recent commentary published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Dr. Julius Pham of Johns Hopkins wrote, “Patients and their family members have a right to be protected from impaired physicians…. Why is there such a difference among high-risk industries, which all pledge to keep the public safe? First, medicine is underregulated compared with other industries. The fiduciary patient-physician relationship is generally considered to be governed by the profession, not to be tampered with by regulatory bodies. While some state and individual health system regulations exist, they tend to be weak. Second, self-monitoring is the essence of medical professionalism. Peer review is the accepted modality to identify physicians with impaired performance. Most states now have a designated physician health program to detect and assist potentially impaired physicians before those physicians cause patients harm. However, these programs vary in their mandate, authority, reporting requirements, and activities. For instance, California has the largest number of US physicians, but its physician health program was recently discontinued. In states without proactive programs, it seems, by default, that patient harm has to occur before a review process occurs. In many cases, an overwhelming amount of data (i.e., harmed patients) must be available before a hospital or state initiates an investigation.”

Dr. Pham goes on to say, “What might a model of physician impairment regulation look like? First, mandatory physical examination, drug testing, or both may be considered before a medical staff appointment. This already occurs in some hospitals and has been successful in other industries. Second, a program of random alcohol-drug testing could be implemented. Random testing is required for most federal employees and has been successfully implemented in several medical settings. Random testing in the military has resulted in a decrease in illicit drug use. Third, a policy for routine drug-alcohol testing could be initiated for all physicians involved with a sentinel event leading to patient death. Fourth, a national hospital regulatory/accrediting body could establish these standards to maintain consistency across states.”

It’s estimated that approximately 10% to 15% of all healthcare professionals misuse drugs or alcohol at some time during their career. Although rates of substance abuse and dependence are no different than those in the general population, the stakes are higher because healthcare professionals are caregivers responsible for the general health and well-being of our population. It’s known that specialties such as anesthesiology, emergency medicine, and psychiatry have higher rates of drug abuse, possible due to the stress level associated with these specialties, the baseline personalities of these healthcare providers, and easy access to drugs in these specialties.

As physicians, do we have any compelling arguments to deflect the notion of MD’s being drug tested? Physicians decry the intrusion into their privacy. There is the ethical question whether the risk of patient injury by the 10% of physicians who use drugs and/or alcohol merits that the other 90% of physicians should be subjected to drug testing. There is also the specter of false-positive tests, which could wreak havoc with a doctor’s reputation. The details of any proposed drug and alcohol screening programs will be crucial, and any screening program will require careful consideration of a physician’s rights and privacy.

Two prominent hospitals—Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio—implemented random urine drug testing in their anesthesia residency teaching departments. A 2005 survey by the Cleveland Clinic estimated that 80 percent of anesthesiology residency training programs reported problems with drug-impaired doctors, and an additional 19 percent reported a death from overdose. “The problem is that we are exposed to, and we have the use of, very highly addictive and potent medications,” said Dr. Michael G. Fitzsimons, administrator for the substance abuse program of the department of anesthesia and critical care at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr. Gregory B. Collins, section head of the Alcohol and Drug Recovery Center, at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, said, “The first thing you often realize in these cases, it’s a kid dead in the bathroom with a needle in his arm.” Dr. Arnold Berry, an anesthesiologist and a member of the Committee on Occupational Health of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, said estimates of anesthesiologists who are addicted to medication range from only 1 to 2 percent. “The most recent study in training programs suggests the (addiction) rate has stayed the same for 20 years,” he said. Dr. Berry said the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) has decided to use other tactics to stave off addiction, rather than recommending urine testing. The ASA is implemented a “wellness initiative” to help anesthesiologists deal with stressors in their lives.

While doctors and organized medicine may delay the notion of drug testing for themselves, public opinion and lawmakers may lead the way toward making physicians “pee in the cup.” Citizens don’t want their airline pilots, firemen, and police officers under the influence of alcohol or drugs, and patients don’t want their doctors under the influence of alcohol or drugs either.

Our patients always come first. It will be an arduous task for MD’s to forever oppose a mandate for clean and sober physicians. Hugh Laurie was a fascinating character as the opiate-popping junkie doctor in “House,” but what patient wants the TV persona of Dr. Gregory House at their bedside?

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

DO YOU NEED AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST FOR ENDOSCOPY OF YOUR ESOPHAGUS, STOMACH, AND UPPER GASTROENTEROLOGIC TRACT?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 9 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Do you need an anesthesiologist for upper gastrointestinal endoscopy? In the aftermath of Joan Rivers’ tragic death following an upper endoscopy procedure at a New York outpatient surgery center, every news bureau is discussing this topic. Because I have no inside information on Joan Rivers’ medical care during her procedure, I will not judge her physicians, rather I will attempt to answer the specific question:

Do you need an anesthesiologist for an upper gastrointestinal endoscopy?

The answer to the question is:  it depends.  It depends on 1) your health, 2) the conscious sedation skills of your gastroenterologist, and 3) the facility you have your endoscopy at.

1)  YOUR HEALTH. The majority of endoscopies in the United States are performed under conscious sedation.  Conscious sedation is administered by a registered nurse, under specific orders from the gastroenterologist.  The typical drugs are Versed (midazolam) and fentanyl.  Versed is a benzodiazepine, or Valium-like medication, that is superb in reducing anxiety, sleepiness, and producing amnesia.  Fentanyl is a narcotic pain reliever, similar to a short-acting morphine.  The combination of these two types of medications renders a patient sleepy but awake.  Most patients can minimal or no recollection of the endoscopy procedure when under the influence of these two drugs.  I can speak from personal experience, as I had an endoscopy myself, with conscious sedation with Versed and fentanyl, and I remembered nothing of the procedure.

If you are a reasonably healthy adult, you should be fine having the procedure under conscious sedation.  Patients with high blood pressure, diabetes, asthma, obesity, mild to moderate sleep apnea, advanced age, or stable cardiac disease are have conscious sedation for colonoscopies in America every day, without significant complications.

Certain patients are not good candidates for conscious sedation, and require an anesthesiologist for sedation or general anesthesia.  Included in this category are a) patients on large doses of chronic narcotics for chronic pain, who are tolerant to the fentanyl and are therefore difficult to sedate, b) certain patients with morbid obesity, c) certain patients with severe sleep apnea, and d) certain patients with severe heart or breathing problems.

2)  THE CONSCIOUS SEDATION SKILLS OF YOUR GASTROENTEROLOGIST.  Most gastroenterologists are comfortable directing registered nurses in the administration of conscious sedation drugs.  Some, however, are not.  These gastroenterologists will disclose this to their patients, and recommend that an anesthesiologist administer general anesthesia for the procedure.

3) THE FACILITY YOU HAVE YOUR ENDOSCOPY AT.  Most endoscopy facilities have nurses and gastroenterologists comfortable with conscious sedation.  Some do not.  The facility you are referred to may have a consistent policy of having an anesthesiologist administer general anesthesia with propofol for all endoscopies.  If this is true, they should disclose this to you, the patient, before you arrive for the procedure.  A facility which always utilizes general anesthesia means that you, the patient, will incur one extra physician bill for your procedure, from an anesthesiologist.

I refer you to an article from the New York Times, which summarizes the anesthesiologist-propofol-for-endoscopy phenomenon in the New York region in 2012:

One last point: If the drugs Versed and fentanyl are used, there exist specific and effective antidotes for each drug if the patient becomes oversedated. The antagonist for Versed is Romazicon (flumazenil), and the antagonist for fentanyl is Narcan (naloxone). If these drugs are injected promptly into the IV of an oversedated patient, the patient will wake up in seconds, before any oxygen deprivation affects the brain or heart.

Propofol, however, has no specific antagonist. Propofol only wears off as it is redistributed out of the blood stream into other tissues, and its blood level declines. A propofol overdose can cause obstruction of breathing, and/or depression of breathing, such that the blood oxygen level is insufficient for the brain and heart. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandates that a Black Box warning be included in the packaging of every box of propofol. That warning states that propofol “should be administered only by persons trained in the administration of general anesthesia and not involved in the conduct of the surgical/diagnostic procedure.”

Anesthesiologists are experts at using propofol. I administer propofol to 99% of my patients who are undergoing general anesthesia for a surgical procedure. Anesthesiologists are experts at managing airways and breathing. Individuals who are not trained to administer general anesthesia should never administer propofol to a patient, in a hospital or in an outpatient surgery center.

I serve as the medical director of an outpatient surgery center in Palo Alto, California. We perform a variety of orthopedic, head and neck, plastic, ophthalmic, and general surgery procedures safely each year. In addition, our gastroenterologists perform thousands of endoscopies each year. I review the charts of the endoscopy patients as well as the surgical patients prior to the procedures, and in our center, approximately 99% of endoscopies can be safely performed under Versed and fentanyl conscious sedation, without the need for an anesthesiologist attending to the patient.

If you have an endoscopy, ask questions. Will you receive conscious sedation with drugs like Versed and fentanyl, or will an anesthesiology professional administer propofol? You deserve to know.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

HERBAL MEDICINES, SURGERY, AND ANESTHESIA

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

An otherwise healthy 50-year-old female patient takes three herb pills daily: gingko, kava, and ginseng. What do you do when this patient needs elective surgery for an ACL reconstruction two days from now? Do you cancel surgery and stop the herbal medicines, or should you proceed?

My goal is to give you practical advice on how to proceed in the real world of anesthesia and surgical practice. We all know herbal medicines are out there. Do they matter? What is the evidence that herbal medicines affect surgical outcomes in an adverse way?

Many commonly used herbal medicines have side effects that affect drug metabolism, bleeding, and the central nervous system. In 2002 35% of Americans used complementary alternative medicine (CAM) therapies, and visits to CAM practitioners exceeded those to American primary care physicians (Tindle et al: Trends in use of complementary and alternative medicine by US adults: 1997-2002. Altern Ther Health Med 2005; 11:42). CAM practitioners include homeopathic medicine, meditation, art, music, or dance therapy, herbal medicines, dietary supplements, chiropractic manipulation, osteopathic medicine, massage, and acupuncture.

The finest review of herbal medicines and anesthesia is Chapter 33 in Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th Edition, 2009, authored by Ang-Lee, Yuan, and Moss. The authors write, “Many patients fail to volunteer information regarding herb and alternative medicine pills unless they are specifically asked about herbal medication use. Scientific knowledge in this area is still incomplete. There are no randomized, controlled trials that have evaluated the effects of prior herbal medicine use on the period immediately before, during and after surgery.” They go on to say, “preoperative use of herbal medicines has been associated with adverse perioperative events,” and “Because herbal medicines are classified as dietary supplements, they are not subject to preclinical animal studies, premarketing controlled clinical trials, or postmarketing surveillance. Under current law, the burden is shifted to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to prove products unsafe before they can be withdrawn from the market.”

The authors reviewed nine herbal medicines that have the greatest impact on perioperative patient care: echinacea, ephedra, garlic, Ginkgo biloba, ginseng, kava, saw palmetto, St. John’s wort, and valerian. These nine pills represent 50% of the herbal medicines sold in the United States.

The same authors published a paper entitled “Herbal Medicines and Perioperative Care.” (JAMA 2001; 286:208). The following table is reproduced from that journal article, and describes relevant effects, perioperative concerns, and recommendations for eight of the most common herbal medicines:

Echinacea
Boosts immunity. Allergic reactions, impairs immune suppressive drugs, can cause 
immune suppression when taken long-term, could impair wound 
healing. Discontinue as far in advance as possible, especially for transplant patients or those with liver dysfunction.

Ephedra (ma huang) Increases heart rate, increases blood pressure. Risk of heart attack, arrhythmias, stroke, interaction with other drugs, kidney stones. Discontinue at least 24 hours before surgery.

Garlic (ajo)
Prevents clotting. Risk of bleeding, especially when combined with other drugs that inhibit clotting. Discontinue at least 7 days before surgery.

Ginko (duck foot, maidenhair, silver apricot). Prevents clotting. Risk of bleeding, especially when combined with other drugs that inhibit clotting. Discontinue at least 36 hours before surgery.

Ginseng
Lowers blood glucose, inhibits clotting. Lowers blood-sugar levels. Increases risk of bleeding. Interferes with warfarin (an anti-clotting drug). Discontinue at least seven days before surgery.

Kava (kawa, awa, intoxicating pepper). Sedates, decreases anxiety. May increase sedative effects of anesthesia. Risks of addiction, tolerance and withdrawal unknown. Discontinue at least 24 hours before surgery.

St. John’s wort (amber, goatweed, Hypericum, klamatheweed). Inhibits re-uptake of neuro-transmitters (similar to Prozac). Alters metabolisms of other drugs such as cyclosporin (for transplant patients), warfarin, steroids, protease inhibitors (vs HIV). May interfere with many other drug.s Discontinue at least five days before surgery.

Valerian
Sedates Could increase effects of sedatives. Long-term use could increase the amount of anesthesia needed. Withdrawal symptoms resemble Valium addiction If possible, taper dose weeks before surgery. If not, continue use until surgery. Treat withdrawal symptoms with benzodiazepines.

In their chapter in Miller’s Anesthesia, Ang-Lee, Yuan, and Moss recommend that, “In general, herbal medicines should be discontinued preoperatively. When pharmacokinetic data for the active constituents in an herbal medication are available, the timeframe for preoperative discontinuation can be tailored. For other herbal medicines, 2 weeks is recommended. However, in clinical practice because many patients require nonelective surgery, are not evaluated until the day of surgery, or are noncompliant with instructions to discontinue herbal medications preoperatively, they may take herbal medicines until the day of surgery. In this situation, anesthesia can usually proceed safely at the discretion of the anesthesiologist, who should be familiar with commonly used herbal medicines to avoid or recognize and treat complications that may arise.”

The American Society of Anesthesiologists have no official standards or guidelines on the preoperative use of herbal medications. Public and professional educational information released by the American Society of Anesthesiologists suggest that herbals be discontinued at least 2 to 3 weeks before surgery.

To return to our original question, what do you do when your otherwise healthy 50-year-old female patient has been taking gingko, kava, and ginseng up to two days prior to her ACL reconstruction surgery? Gingko can cause increased bleeding, kava can cause increased sedation, and ginseng can cause decreased blood sugars and increased bleeding. You discuss the predicament with the patient’s surgeon. He’s not concerned that a possible increased risk of bleeding will affect this knee surgery. You decide the increased level of sedation and the possible decreased blood sugar risks are not prohibitive. (If you were worried, you could cut back slightly on the amount of central nervous system depressant drugs you utilize, and also run a 5% dextrose solution in the patient’s IV.)

An alternative choice would be to cancel the surgery for 2 weeks while the patient remains herb-free. The surgeon asks you, “Is there any data that postponing the surgery for two weeks will decrease the complication rate?”

You answer honestly and say, “There is no data. The American Society of Anesthesiologists suggests that herbals be discontinued at least 2 to 3 weeks before surgery.”

The surgeon says, “I want to do the case tomorrow. There’s no data compelling me to delay for two weeks. I accept whatever increased bleeding risk there may be. I’ve never had a patient have a bleeding complication from a knee surgery.”

You proceed with the surgery the next day. The patient does well, and has no complications.

Surveys estimate that:
a) 22% to 32% of patients undergoing surgery use herbal medications (Tsen LC, et al: Alternative medicine use in presurgical patients. Anesthesiology 2000; 93:148);
b) 90% of anesthesiologists do not routinely ask about herbal medicine use (McKenzie AG: Current management of patients taking herbal medicines: A survey of anaesthetic practice in the UK. Eur J Anaesthesiol 2005; 22:597); and
c) more than 70% of patients are not forthcoming about their herbal medicine use during routine preoperative assessment (Kaye AD, et al: Herbal medications: Current trends in anesthesiology practice—a hospital survey. J Clin Anesth 2000; 12:468).

The frequent use of herbal medicines in perioperative patients is real. How big a problem is it? Nobody knows. How frequently does one of your patients have an unexpected problem of increased bleeding, increased sedation, decreased blood sugar, unexpected cardiac arrhythmia or angina, or decreased immune function?

For an ACL reconstruction in a healthy patient, gingko, kava, and ginseng may pose little risk. For a craniotomy on a 70-year-old with coronary artery disease and diabetes, gingko, kava, and ginseng bay pose an increased risk, and warrant postponing the surgery for 2 weeks after holding the herbal medicines.

My advice is to take a careful history of herb medicine use from your patients, know (or look it up if you don’t remember) the potential side effects of each herbal medicine, and then on a case-by-case basis decide if it really matters if the surgery should be cancelled for 2 weeks.

That’s what doctors do. That’s what anesthesia consultants do.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

SUCCINYLCHOLINE: VITAL DRUG OR OBSOLETE DINOSAUR?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 6 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Succinylcholine: vital drug or dinosaur? Succinylcholine (sux) has the wonderful advantage of rendering a patient paralyzed in less than a minute, and the discouraging disadvantage of a long list of side effects that make the drug problematic.

succinylcholine_chloride_10_med-21

A vial of succinylcholine

I would never begin an anesthetic without succinylcholine being immediately available. No other muscle relaxant supplies as rapid an onset of action and as short a duration of action. An intravenous dose of 1 mg/kg of succinylcholine brings complete paralysis of the neuromuscular junction at 60 seconds, and recovery to 90% of muscle strength in 9 – 13 minutes. (Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th Edition, 2009, Chapter 29, Pharmacology of Muscle Relaxants and Their Antagonists). If a patient has an acute airway disaster on induction such as laryngospasm or pulmonary aspiration, no drug enables emergency endotracheal intubation as quickly as succinylcholine. That said, I never use succinylcholine unless I have to. The drug has too many side effects and rocuronium is often a better choice. For an elective anesthetic on a patient who has fasted and has an empty stomach, one almost never needs to use succinylcholine. If you do use sux, you are exposing your patient to the following side effects:

1. Myalgias. Your patient complains to you the following day, “Doc, I feel like I was run over by a truck.” Because the majority of anesthetics are currently done on outpatients, and because you do not personally interview these patients the following day, you won’t be aware of the degree of muscle pain you’ve induced by using the depolarizing relaxant succinylcholine. Published data quantitates the incidence of post-succinylcholine myalgia as varying from 0.2 % to 89% (Brodsky JB, Anesthesiology 1979; 51:259-61), but my clinical impression is that the number is closer to 89% than it is to 0.2%. Myalgias aren’t life-threatening, but if you ever converse with your patient one day after succinylcholine and they complain of severe muscle aches, you’ll wish you’d chosen another muscle relaxant if possible.
2. Risk of cardiac arrest in children. Succinylcholine carries a black box warning for use in children. Rare hyperkalemia and ventricular arrhythmias followed by cardiac arrest may occur in apparently healthy children who have an occult muscular dystrophy. The black box warning on succinylcholine recommends to “reserve use in children for emergency intubation or need to immediately secure the airway.”
3. Hyperkalemia, with an average increase of 0.5 mEq in potassium concentration after intravenous succinylcholine injection.
4. Cardiac arrest in patients with a history of severe trauma, neurologic disease or burns. There’s a risk of cardiac arrest with succinylcholine use in patients with severe burns, major trauma, stroke, prolonged immobility, multiple sclerosis, or Guillian-Barré syndrome, due to an up-regulation of acetylcholine. The increase in serum potassium normally seen with succinylcholine can be greatly increased in these populations, leading to ventricular arrhythmia and cardiac arrest. There is typically no risk using succinylcholine in the first 24 hours after the acute injury.
5. Cardiac arrhythmias. Both tachy and bradycardias can be seen following the injection of succinylcholine.
6. Increase in intraocular pressure, a hazard when the eye is open or traumatized.
7. Increase in intragastric pressure, a hazard if gastric motility is abnormal or the stomach is full.
8. Increase in intracranial pressure, a hazard with head injuries or intracerebral bleeds or tumors.
9. Malignant Hyperthermia (MH) risk. The incidence of MH is low. A Danish study reported one case per 4500 anesthetics when triggering agents are in use (Ording H, Dan Med Bull, 43:111-125), but succinylcholine is the only injectable drug which is a trigger for MH, and this is a disincentive to use the drug routinely.
10. Prolonged phase II blockade. Patients who have genetically abnormal plasma butyrylcholinesterase activity have the risk of a prolonged phase II succinylcholine block lasting up to six hours instead of the expected 9 – 13 minutes. If you’ve ever had to stay in the operating room or post-anesthesia recovery room for hours with a ventilated patient after their surgery ended because your patient incurred prolonged blockade from succinylcholine, you won’t forget it, and you’ll hope it never happens again.

What does a practicing anesthesiologist use instead of succinylcholine? Rocuronium.

A 0.6 mg/kg intubating dose of the non-depolarizing relaxant rocuronium has an onset time to maximum block of 1.7 minutes and a duration of 36 minutes. The onset time can be shortened by increasing the dose to a 1.2 mg/kg, a dose which has an onset time to maximum block of 0.9 minutes and a duration of 73 minutes. These durations can be shortened by reversing the rocuronium blockade as soon as one twitch is measured with a neuromuscular blockade monitor. Thus by using a larger dose of rocuronium, practitioners can have an onset of acceptable intubation conditions at 0.9 X 60 seconds = 54 seconds, compared to the 30 seconds noted with succinylcholine, without any of the 10 above-listed succinylcholine side effects. The duration of rocuronium when reversed by neostigmine/glycopyrrolate can be as short as 20 – 25 minutes, a time short enough to accommodate most brief surgical procedures.

Now that sugammadex is commercially available, we can reverse rocuronium blockade in seconds, making rocuronium shorter in duration than succinylcholine.

Here is a list of surgical cases once thought to be indications for using succinylcholine, which I would argue are now better served by using a dose of rocuronium followed by early reversal with sugammadex:

1) Brief procedures requiring intubation, such as bronchoscopy or tonsillectomy.
2) Procedures which require intubation plus intraoperative nerve monitoring, such as middle ear surgery.
3) Procedures requiring intubation of obese and morbidly obese patients who appear to have no risk factors for mask ventilation.
4) Procedures requiring full stomach precautions and cricoid pressure, in which the patient’s oxygenation status can tolerate 54 seconds of apnea prior to intubation. This includes emergency surgery and trauma patients. Miller’s Anesthesia (Chapter 72, Anesthesia for Trauma) discusses the induction of anesthesia and endotracheal intubation for emergency patients who are not NPO and may have full stomachs. Either succinylcholine or rocuronium can be used, with succinylcholine having the advantage of a quicker onset and the 1.2 mg/kg of rocuronium having the advantage of lacking the 10 side effects listed above. The fact that succinylcholine takes 9 – 13 minutes to wear off makes it riskier than rocuronium, which can be reversed in seconds by sugammadex. Waiting for 9 minutes for a return to spontaneous respirations after succinycholine would be associated with severe hypoxia.

On the other hand, succinylcholine is the sole recommended muscle relaxant for:

1) Cesarean sections. Miller’s Anesthesia (Chapter 69, Anesthesia for Obstetrics) still recommends thiopental and succinylcholine for Cesarean sections that require general anesthesia, and I would be loath to disagree with our specialty’s Bible.
2) Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) for depression. Miller’s Anesthesia (Chapter 79, Anesthesia at Remote Locations) recommends partial muscle relaxation during ECT, and recommends small doses of succinylcholine (0.5 mg/kg) to reduce the peripheral manifestations of the seizure and to prevent musculoskeletal trauma to the patient.
3) Urgent intubation or re-intubation in a patient when every second counts, e.g. a patient who is already hypoxic. A subset of this indication is the patient who is being mask-induced and becomes hypoxic and requires intramuscular succinylcholine injection.
4) Laryngospasm either during mask induction or post-extubation, in which the patient requires urgent paralysis to relax the vocal cords.

In conclusion, most indications for muscle relaxation are better handled by using the non-depolarizing drug rocuronium rather than succinylcholine. However, because of the four recommended uses for succinylcholine listed in the previous paragraph, none of us would ever practice anesthesia without a vial of succinylcholine in our drawer for immediate availability.

I try very, very hard to minimize my use of succinylcholine, and so should you. But to answer our original question… succinylcholine is still a vital drug and not a dinosaur at all.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

STARTING A COMPANY: THE PHYSICIAN ENTREPRENEUR

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Anesthesiologists spend thousands of hours in operating rooms, surrounded by other people’s inventions. We may think, “Why can’t I be a physician entrepreneur? Why can’t I start a company to invent something like the pulse oximeter (i.e. Dr. Bill New, Stanford anesthesiologist-engineer), the laryngeal mask airway (i.e. Dr. Archie Brain of England), or even the Bair Hugger? Heck, I use a hair dryer every morning. Why didn’t I realize how useful hot air could be in warming surgical patients?”

physician

In a recent Stanford Anesthesia Grand Rounds lecture, anesthesiologist-entrepreneur Jeffery Bleich, MD discussed this very topic. How does a physician go about converting his idea into a medical technology company? Dr. Bleich is a unique individual, a board-certified anesthesiologist and pain medicine specialist who completed Stanford Business School’s Sloan Fellowship and founded not one but two Silicon Valley medical companies. These are some highlights from Dr. Bleich’s lecture:

  1. Anesthesiologists can be ideally suited for starting companies, because our specialty interfaces with all aspects of medicine, from neonates to geriatrics, from cardiac and brain surgery to ambulatory procedures such as orthopedics, ENT, and plastics. Anesthesiologists have ample time to contemplate new ideas as they take part in surgical and medical interventions, and we have the ability to create flexible schedules to explore entrepreneurial ventures.
  2. Dr. Bleich recommends a 20-year plan as an approach to starting a medical business. Where you want to be in 20 years dictates what decisions you will make regarding your future 10 years from now, 5 years from now, and most importantly, today.
  3. Think of a Problem that needs a better solution. Then the most important ingredients in your plan are Team > Market > Idea. One might think that the Idea is the key to starting a company, but Dr. Bleich stressed that an excellent Team comes first. If one assembles an excellent Team to approach a big Market, the Idea will develop out of Team and Market.
  4. Find a Mentor. A seasoned role model who has started a company prior to you will be your greatest asset in guiding you through the process. For a modest percentage of ownership in the venture, recruit a Mentor. In the Stanford geographical area, Silicon Valley is a rich resource of such individuals.
  5. “Kill ‘em Quick.” This phrase refers to the concept of killing bad ideas quickly. Try to criticize and defeat each new idea you have. If you are capable of killing the idea in short order, this is preferable to investing years of time and quantities of dollars only to find the idea is not viable. If you can’t kill the idea quickly, go with it.
  6. Expertise + Passion = Magic. Passion is necessary and contagious. If you have Passion for the Idea and the Expertise to back it up, your likelihood for success grows.
  7. Deliver. This requires sweat and effort. Dr. Bleich reports that starting a company becomes a 7-day a week project that infringes on family time, traditional work time, and free time. He stresses that intellectual honesty and execution are needed to keep the company on path. The need to “make a difference” in the world can be an overriding theme that keeps the work on track.
  8. Funding. From 2004-2009, Dr. Bleich was the Founder and CEO of Baxano, Inc, a company that developed both a minimally invasive procedure and instruments to approach lumbar stenosis surgery. In the company’s infancy, Dr. Bleich was the sole owner of Baxano, Inc. During the ensuing years, Baxano raised $70 million in venture capital money to support the company. Eventually the company merged with a public company in an acquisition.
  9. A cautionary tale: Dr. Bleich described venture capital (VC) funding as an “extremely financially risky path,” particularly in the medical technology industry today. However, he added, if you can obtain this type of financial capital, it does provide a sort of “rocket fuel” that can enable a company to attempt to grow a business very quickly. Unfortunately, it also requires giving up control of the company’s major financial decisions to the Venture investors.
  10. Dr. Bleich has since founded a second company, Pulson, Inc., where he again serves as President and CEO. This time around he’s been able to avoid VC funding, partly because Pulson, as a software company focused on consumer health, requires less overhead than did Baxano, a medical device company developing minimally invasive surgical tools. Forgoing the “rocket fuel” the venture capitalists offer means the new company has grown more slowly than a typical VC funded enterprise, but bootstrapping the company in this manner has allowed control of the company to remain with the founders, which so far appears to have been worth the tradeoff.
  11. Dr. Bleich described the current financing climate for medical device companies as a “wasteland.” It’s his personal opinion that the federal government, appropriately concerned with out of control inflation in medical care costs, has recognized that proprietary new medical devices are typically very expensive compared to generic devices, yet more often than not they are at best only marginally better than old technology. In order to shut down expensive new proprietary products from hitting the market, the government has three ”levers” that it can pull to suppress medical device innovation:  a) it can make it more difficult to get products approved or cleared through the Food and Drug Administration (FDA);  b) it can make it more difficult for new products to gain reimbursement through Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS);  and c) it can (and did) add punitive new taxes that specifically target medical devices. These factors have combined to increase the risk and cost of bringing new medical technologies to market, while decreasing the value of the few that actually make it, causing many of the finest investors across the medical technology industry to leave for greener pastures.
  12. Dr. Bleich encouraged would-be entrepreneurs to not be discouraged by the lack of interest in medical technology investing as we used to know it. In fact, he described a silver lining in these dark clouds, and provided examples of newly emerging areas in healthcare innovation that are bursting with future promise. He suggested that some of the best new territories for medical innovation include the individual and converged categories of: a) wireless technology, b) genomics, and c) Big Data.
  13. What about the value of a physician going to business school and gaining a business degree? Dr. Bleich graduated from Stanford Business School, one of the world’s elite business schools. Was it worth it? Dr. Bleich admits it helped him approach the business world with more confidence. The degree itself didn’t help him find a job that was of particular interest to him, because an MD with one year of business school is very unlikely to be able to qualify for a high level business position. After interviewing with a couple of large medical technology companies, he soon realized the only way he would be able to find a job in the business world that gave him the level of responsibility he was looking for was to create the company himself. Not surprisingly, when he founded his own company, Baxano, as the only employee, he hired himself as CEO.
  14. With MD salaries as high as or higher than most mid-level business jobs, and with the income potential of MD’s still relatively high, Dr. Bleich stressed that the motivation to go into business and start a company should not be money. “If your major motivation is simply to make a fortune, your odds would be better rolling the dice at a craps table in Las Vegas than starting a medical company,” he said. “It’s a gamble either way. You should become an entrepreneur because you know in your heart that you cannot go to the grave without trying to make the world a better place with your business idea.”

I thank Dr. Jeffery Bleich for his expertise, candid remarks, and advice.

The American Dream is alive and well in the 21st Century, and if you have the heart and soul of an entrepreneur, I hope you summon your intellect and your courage, and start a company that changes the world we live and work in.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

HOW TO SCREEN OUTPATIENTS PRIOR TO SURGERY

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 4 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Screening prior to outpatient surgery is important. Over 70% of elective surgeries in the United States are ambulatory or outpatient surgeries, in which the patient goes home the same day as the procedure. There are increasing numbers of surgical patients who are elderly, obese, have sleep apnea, or who have multiple medical problems. How do we decide which 70% of surgical candidates are appropriate for outpatient surgery, and which are not?

Since 2002 I’ve been the Medical Director at a busy Ambulatory Surgery Center (ASC) in Palo Alto, California. ASC Medical Directors are perioperative physicians, responsible for the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative management of ambulatory surgery patients. Our surgery center is freestanding, distanced one mile from Stanford University Hospital. The hospital-based technologies of laboratory testing, a blood bank, an ICU, arterial blood gas measurement, and full radiology diagnostics are not available on site. It’s important that patient selection for a freestanding surgery center is precise and safe.

The topic of Ambulatory Anesthesia is well reviewed in the textbook Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th Edition, 2009, Chapter 78, Ambulatory (Outpatient) Anesthesia. With the information in this chapter as a foundation, the following 7 points are guidelines I recommend in the preoperative consultation and selection of appropriate outpatient surgery patients:

  1. The most important factor in deciding if a surgical case is appropriate is not how many medical problems the patient has, but rather the magnitude of the surgical procedure. A patient may have morbid obesity, sleep apnea, and a past history of congestive heart failure, but still safely undergo a non-invasive procedure such as a hammertoe repair. Conversely, if the patient is healthy, but the scheduled surgery is an invasive procedure such as resection of a mass in the liver, that surgery needs to be done in a hospital.
  2. Because of #1, an ASC will schedule noninvasive procedures such as arthroscopies, head and neck procedures, eye surgeries, minor gynecology and general surgery procedures, gastroenterology endoscopies, plastic surgeries, and dental surgeries. What all these scheduled procedures have in common is that the surgeries (a) will not disrupt the patient’s airway, breathing, or cardiac physiology in a major way, and (b) will not cause excessive pain requires inpatient intravenous narcotics.
  3. One must screen patients preoperatively to identify individuals who have serious medical problems. Our facility uses a comprehensive preoperative telephone interview performed by a medical assistant, two days prior to surgery. The interview documents age, height, weight, Body Mass Index, complete review of systems, list of allergies, and prescription drug history. All information is entered in the patient’s medical record at that time.
  4. Each surgeon’s office assists in the preoperative screening. For all patients who have (a) age over 65, (b) obstructive sleep apnea, (c) cardiac disease or arrhythmia history, (d) significant lung disease, (e) shortness of breath or chest pain, (f) renal failure or hepatic failure, (g) insulin dependent diabetes, or (h) significant neurological abnormality, the surgery office is required to obtain medical clearance from the patient’s Primary Care Provider (PCP).    This PCP clearance note concludes with two questions: 1) Does the patient require any further diagnostic testing prior to the scheduled surgery? And 2) Does the patient require any further therapeutic measures prior to the scheduled surgery?
  5. For each patient identified with significant medical problems, the Medical Director must review the chart and the Primary Care Provider note, and confirm that the patient is an appropriate candidate for the outpatient surgery. The Medical Director may telephone the patient for a more detailed history if indicated. On rare occasions, the Medical Director may arrange to meet and examine the patient prior to the surgical date.
  6. Medical judgment is required, as some ASA III patients with significant comorbidities are candidates for trivial outpatient procedures such as gastroenterology endoscopy or removal of a neuroma from a finger, but are inappropriate candidates for a shoulder arthroscopy or any procedure that requires general endotracheal anesthesia.
  7. What about laboratory testing? Per Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th Edition, 2009, Chapter 78, few preoperative lab tests are indicated prior to most ambulatory surgery. We require a recent ECG for patients with a history of hypertension, cardiac disease, or for any patient over 65 years in age. If this ECG is not included with the Primary Care Provider consultation note, we perform the ECG on site in the preoperative area of our ASC, at no charge to the patient. All diabetic patients have a fasting glucose test done prior to surgery. No electrolytes, hematocrit, renal function tests, or hepatic tests are required on any patient unless that patient’s history indicates a specific reason to mandate those tests.

Utilizing this system, cancellations on the day of surgery are infrequent—well below 1% of the scheduled procedures. The expense of and inconvenience of an Anesthesia Preoperative Clinic are eliminated.

What sort of cases are not approved? Here are examples from my practice regarding patients/procedures who are/are not appropriate for surgery at a freestanding ambulatory surgery center:

  1. A 45-year-old patient with moderately severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is scheduled for a UPPP (uvulopalatalpharyngoplasty). DECISION: NOT APPROPRIATE. Reference: American Society of Anesthesiologist Practice Guidelines of the Perioperative Management of Patients with OSA (https://www.asahq.org/coveo.aspx?q=osa). For airway and palate surgery on an OSA patient, the patient is best observed in a medical facility post-surgery. For any surgery this painful in an OSA patient, the patient will require significant narcotics, which place him at risk for apnea and airway obstruction post-surgery.
  2. A morbidly obese male (Body Mass Index = 40) is scheduled for a shoulder arthroscopy and rotator cuff repair. DECISION: NOT APPROPRIATE. Obesity is not an automatic exclusion criterion for outpatient surgery. Whether to cancel the case or not depends on the nature of the surgery. A shoulder repair often requires significant postoperative narcotics. The intersection of morbid obesity and a painful surgery means it’s best to do the case in a hospital. One could argue that this patient could be done with an interscalene block for postoperative analgesia and then discharged home, but I don’t support this decision. If the block is difficult or ineffective, the anesthesiologist has a morbidly obese patient requiring significant doses of narcotics, and who is scheduled to be discharged home. If this surgery had been a knee arthroscopy and medial meniscectomy it could be an appropriate outpatient surgery, because meniscectomy patients have minimal pain postoperatively.
  3. An 18-year-old male with a positive family history of Malignant Hyperthermia is scheduled for a tympanoplasty. DECISION: APPROPRIATE. A trigger-free general total-intravenous anesthetic with propofol and remifenantil can be given just as safely in an ASC as in a hospital.
  4. A 50-year-old 70-kilogram male with a known difficult airway (ankylosing spondylitis) is scheduled for endoscopic sinus surgery. DECISION: NOT APPROPRIATE. In our ASC, for safety reasons, we have advanced airway equipment including a video laryngoscope and a fiberoptic laryngoscope. Despite our equipment, a patient with a known difficult airway is best scheduled for surgery in a hospital setting.
  5. An 80-year-old woman with shortness of breath on exertion is scheduled for a bunionectomy. DECISION: NOT APPROPRIATE. Although foot surgery is not a major invasive procedure, any patient with shortness of breath is inappropriate for ASC surgery. The nature of the dyspnea needs to be determined and remedied prior to surgery or anesthesia of any sort.
  6. A 6-year-old female born without an ear is scheduled for a 6-hour ear graft and reconstruction. DECISION: APPROPRIATE. With modern general anesthetic techniques utilizing sevoflurane and propofol, patients awake promptly. Even after long anesthetics, if the surgery is not painful, patients are usually discharged in stable condition within 60 minutes.

There are infinite combinations of patient comorbidities and types of surgeries. The decision regarding which scheduled procedures are appropriate and which are not is both an art and a science. The role of an anesthesiologist/Medical Director as the perioperative physician making these decisions is invaluable.

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

10 WAYS PRIVATE PRACTICE ANESTHESIA DIFFERS FROM ACADEMIC ANESTHESIA

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 5 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Academic and private practice anesthesia differ. I’m fortunate to be a member of the clinical faculty in the Department of Anesthesia, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University. Stanford is a unique academic hospital, staffed by both academic and private practice physicians. From 2001 until 2015, I served as the Deputy Chief of Anesthesia at Stanford, an elected officer who leads the private practice/community section of the anesthesia department.


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Stanford anesthesia residents frequently question me about how the world of private practice differs from academia. I began my writing career by penning a series of Stanford Deputy Chief Columns. These columns originated as a forum to educate residents using specific cases and situations I found unique to private practice.

Although some anesthesia residents continue in academic medicine, most pursue careers in community or private practice. In 2009, the Anesthesia Quality Institute published Anesthesia in the United States 2009, a report that summarized data on our profession. There were 41,693 anesthesiologists in America at that time, and the demographics of practice type were: academic/teaching medical center 43%, community hospital 35%, city/county hospital 11%, and ambulatory surgery center 6%. Per this data, the majority of American anesthesiologists practice outside of teaching hospitals.

How does community anesthesia differ from academic anesthesia? I’m uniquely qualified to answer this question. I’ve worked at Stanford University Hospital for 34 years, including 5 years of residency training and one year as an Emergency Room faculty member, but my last 25 years at Stanford have been in private practice with the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group.

Here’s my list of the 10 major adjustments residents face transitioning from academic anesthesia to private practice/community anesthesia:

  1. You’ll work alone. In academic medicine, faculty members supervise residents. In private practice, you’re on your own. This is particularly true in the middle of the night or when you are working in a small freestanding surgery center where you are the only anesthesia professional. In these settings, you have little or no backup if clinical circumstances become dire. An additional example is the performance of pediatric inhalation inductions. During residency training, a faculty member starts the IV while the resident manages the airway. In private practice you’ll do both tasks yourself. I’d advise you to adopt a senior member of your new anesthesia group as a mentor, and to question him or her in an ongoing nature regarding the nuances of your new practice. (Note that certain private practices, especially in the Midwest or Southeastern U.S., utilize Anesthesia Care Teams, where anesthesiology attendings supervise nurse anesthetists, but this model is less common in California).
  2. Income: your income will be linked to your production. The good news is that you’ll earn more money that you did as a resident. Your income will be linked to the amount of cases you do. You’ll earn more in a twelve-hour day than you do in a four-hour day, so you have an incentive to do extra cases. A job where newly hired physicians have equitable access to workload is desirable.
  3. Income: your income will be linked to the insurance coverage of your patients. Privately insured patients pay more than Medicare and Medicaid patients. You may earn more working a four-hour day for insured patients than you earn working twelve hours working for the government plans of Medicare and Medicaid. It’s too early to know how much Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act will alter physician salaries. A job with a low percentage of Medicare and Medicaid work is desirable.
  4. Vacations. You’ll have access to more vacation time than you did in academic training. Most jobs allow a flexible amount of weeks away from clinical practice, but you will earn zero money during those weeks. It will be your choice: maximize free time or maximize income.
  5. Recipes. You’ll tend to use consistent anesthesia “recipes,” rather than trying to make every anesthetic unique, interesting or educational, as you may have done in an academic setting. Community practice demands high quality care with efficient inductions and wakeups, and rapid turnovers between cases. Once you discover your best method to do a particular case, you’ll stick to that method.
  6. Continuing Medical Education (CME). In an academic setting, educational conferences are frequent and accessible. After your training is finished, you’ll need to find your own CME. In California the requirement is 50 hours of CME every 2 years. Your options will include conventions, weekend meetings, and self-study at home programs. Many physicians find at-home programs require less investment in time, travel, and tuition than finding out-of-town lectures to attend.
  7. Malpractice insurance. You’ll pay your own malpractice insurance. As a result, you’ll be intensely interested in avoiding malpractice claims and adverse patient outcomes. You’ll become well versed in the standards of care in your anesthesia community.
  8. No teaching. No one will expect you to teach during community practice. You may choose to lecture nurses or your fellow medical staff, but it’s not required.
  9. No writing. No one will expect you to write or publish scholarly articles. You may choose to do so, but you will be in the minority.
  10. 10.  Respect. You’ll experience a higher level of respect from nurses and staff at community hospitals and surgery centers than you receive during residency. Nurses and staff accept that you are fully trained and experienced, and treat you as such. Free food at lunch and breakfast is common. Some hospitals have comfortable physician lounges where medical staff members gather. Teams of physicians work together at the same community hospitals for decades, and form strong relationships with the nurses, techs, and their fellow medical staff. It feels terrific to collaborate with the same professionals week after week.

Academic training is an essential building block in every physician’s career. If and when you choose to venture beyond academia into community anesthesia, this column gives you some idea what to expect. I recommend you find a mentor to help you adjust to the challenges of your new practice setting, and I wish you good luck with the transition.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

AVOIDING AIRWAY DISASTERS IN ANESTHESIA

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 8 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Every anesthesia practitioner dreads airway disasters.  Anesthesiologists and nurse anesthetists are airway experts, but anesthesia professionals are often the only person in the operating room capable of keeping a patient alive if the patient’s airway is occluded or lost. Hypoxia from an airway disaster can lead to brain damage within minutes, so there is little time for human error.

A fundamental skill is the ability to assess a patient’s airway prior to anesthesia. One must assess whether the patient will pose: 1) difficult bag-mask ventilation, 2) difficult supraglottic/laryngeal mask airway placement, 3) difficult laryngoscopy, 4) difficult endotracheal intubation, or 5) difficult surgical airway.

Of critical importance is #1) above, that is, recognizing the patient who will present difficult mask ventilation. Conditions that make for difficult bag-mask ventilation are uncommon, and usually can be detected during physical examination. Despite the importance of expertise in endotracheal intubation, I teach residents and trainees that the most important airway skill is bag-mask ventilation. Every year I encounter several patients who present unanticipated difficult intubations. In each of these patients, I’m able to mask ventilate the patient to keep them oxygenated while I try various strategies and techniques to successfully place an endotracheal tube or a laryngeal mask airway.

Most anesthesia airway disasters aren’t merely difficult intubations, but scenarios that are classified as “can’t intubate, can’t ventilate.” In these “can’t intubate, can’t ventilate” situations, the anesthesiology professional has only minutes to restore oxygenation to the patient or else the risk of permanent brain damage is very real.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists Difficult Airway Algorithm is a guide for anesthesia practitioners regarding how proceed in airway management. The algorithm is detailed, complex, comprehensive, and defines the standard of care in any medical-legal battle concerning hypoxic brain damage due difficult airway clinical cases. The algorithm is so detailed, complex, and comprehensive that some would say it’s impossible to remember every step in the acute occurrence of an airway disaster.

A simplified approach has been touted.

Dr. C. Philip Larson, Professor Emeritus, Anesthesia and Neurosurgery, Stanford University, and Professor of Clinical Anesthesiology at UCLA, and previous Chairman of Anesthesiology at Stanford, was one of my teachers and mentors for both endotracheal intubation and fiberoptic intubation. In a Letter to the Editor of the Stanford Gas Pipeline in May, 2013, Dr. Larson wrote, “there is no scientific evidence that anesthesia is safer because of the ASA Difficult Airway Algorithm.  While an interesting educational document, I question the daily clinical value of this algorithm, even in its most recent form (Anesthesiology 2013; 118:251-70). The ASA Difficult Airway Algorithm was developed by committee and has all the problems that result when done that way.  It is complex, diffuse, multi-dimensional, and all-encompassing such that it is not an instrument that one can easily adopt and practice in the clinical setting.”

Dr. Larson recommends a system of Plans A-D, a system he published in Clinical Anesthesiology, editors Morgan GE, Mikhail MS, Murray MJ, Lange Medical publication, 4th edition, 2006, pp 104-5, and in Current Reviews in Clinical Anesthesiology (2009; 30:61-72), and also in the Appendix on airway management and intubation in the newest edition of Anesthesiologists Manual of Surgical Procedures by Richard Jaffe et al (Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 5th Edition, May 2014). An outline of the system is as follows:

A.  Plan A is direct laryngoscopy an intubation using a Miller or MacIntosh blade.

B.  If Plan A is unsuccessful, Plan B includes use of video laryngoscopy with a GlideScope or similar device.

C.  If Plan B is unsuccessful, Plan C is placement of an LMA with intubation through that LMA using a fiberoptic bronchoscope.

D.  “If Plans A-C fail,” Larson wrote in his Letter to the Editor of the Stanford Gas Pipeline in May, 2013, “one needs Plan D.  The first and perhaps the most prudent option is to cancel the proposed operation, terminate the anesthetic, and wake the patient up. The operation would be rescheduled for another day, and at that time an awake fiberoptic intubation technique would be used.  Alternatively, if the operation cannot be postponed, then the surgeon should be informed that a surgical airway (i.e.: tracheostomy) must be performed before the planned operation can commence.  To date, utilization of Plan D because of failure of Plans A-C has not occurred.”

Dr. Larson wrote that the airway skills in Plan A – C should be practiced regularly on patients with normal airways. I agree with Dr. Larson that in managing difficult airways, a practitioner needs a short list of procedural skills that he or she is expert at rather that a large array of procedures that they rarely use (such as the alternative intubation techniques using light wands or blind nasal techniques, or invasive airway procedures such as retrograde wires passed through the cricothyroid membrane or transtracheal jet ventilation through a catheter). It’s wise for anesthesiologists to regularly hone their techniques of video laryngoscopy (Plan B) and fiberoptic intubation via an LMA (Plan C) on patients with normal airways, to remain expert with these skills.

Regarding Plan B, an important advance is the availability of portable, disposable video laryngoscopes such as the Airtraq, a guided video intubation device. In my career I sometimes work in solo operating room suites distant from hospitals. In these settings, the operating room is usually not be stocked with an expensive video scope such as the GlideScope, the C-MAC, or the McGrath 5. I carry an Airtraq in my briefcase, and if the need for Plan B arises I am prepared to utilize video laryngoscopy at any anesthetizing location. I suggest the practice of carrying an Airtraq to any anesthesiologist who gives general anesthetics in remote locations.

Regarding emergency surgical rescue airway management, Dr. Larson recently published a Letter to the Editor in the American Society of Anesthesiologists Newsletter, February 2014, entitled, Ditch the Needle – Teach the Knife. In this letter, Dr. Larson wrote:

“in life-threatening airway obstruction, … an emergency cricothyrotomy is much quicker, easier, safer and more effective than any needle-based technique. I can state with confidence that there is no place in emergency airway management for needle-based attempts to establish ventilation. It should be deleted from the ASA Difficult Airway Algorithm. I have participated in seven cricothyrotomies in emergency airway situations, and all of the patients left the hospital without any neurological injury or complications from the cricothyrotomy. The risk-benefit ratio is markedly in favor the knife technique…. With a knife, or scissors, one cuts quickly either vertically or horizontally below the thyroid cartilage and there is the cricothyroid membrane or tracheal rings. The knife is inserted into the trachea and turned 90 degrees, and an airway is established. At that point, a small tube of any type can be inserted next to the knife. The knife technique is much safer because there is virtually nothing that one can harm by making an incision within two inches or less in the midline of the neck, and it can be performed in less than 30 seconds. In contrast, the needle is fraught with complications, including identifying the trachea, making certain that the needle is entirely in the trachea and does not move ( to avoid subcutaneous emphysema when an oxygen source is established), establishing a pressurized oxygen delivery system (which will take more than five minutes even in the most experienced circumstances), and avoiding causing a tension pneumothorax… I know of multiple cases of acute airway obstruction where the needle technique was attempted, and in all cases the patients died. I know of no such cases when a cricothyrotomy was used as the primary treatment of acute airway obstruction.”

A final note on the awake intubation of patients with a difficult airway: In hindsight in any difficult airway case, one often wishes they had secured an endotracheal tube prior to the induction of general anesthesia. The difficult problem is deciding prior to a case which patient has such a difficult airway that the induction of general anesthesia should be delayed until after intubation. In anesthesia oral board examinations it may be wise to say you would perform an awake intubation on a difficult airway patient rather than risk the “can’t intubate, can’t ventilate” scenario the examiner is probably poised to skewer you with. In medical malpractice lawsuits, plaintiff expert witnesses in anesthesia airway disaster cases often testify that a brain-dead patient’s life would have been saved if only the anesthesiologist had performed awake intubation rather than inducing general anesthesia first and then losing the airway. The key question is: how does one decide which patient needs an awake intubation? As an anesthesia practitioner, if you performed awake intubations on one out of 50 cases because you were worried about a difficult airway, you would delay operating rooms and surgeons multiple times per year because of your caution. You will not be popular if you do this. In my clinical practice and in the practice of the excellent Stanford anesthesiologists I work with, the prevalence of awake intubation is very low. I estimate most anesthesiologists perform between zero and two awake intubations per year. The most common indications include patients with severe ankylosing spondylitis of the cervical spine, congenital airway anomalies, and severe morbid obesity. Dr. Larson wrote in his Letter to the Editor of the Stanford Gas Pipeline in May, 2013, “I do anesthesia for most of the patients with complex head and neck tumors, and I find fewer and fewer indications for awake fiberoptic intubation. As long as the lungs can be ventilated by bag-mask or LMA, which is true for almost all sedated patients, Plan C is easier, quicker and safer than awake fiberoptic intubation both for the patient and the anesthesia provider.  In experienced hands, Plan C can be completed in less than 5 minutes, and one can become proficient by practicing in normal patients. I have done hundreds of Plan C’s, many under difficult circumstances, without a single failure or complication.  Obviously, no technique will encompass every conceivable airway problem, but mastering Plans A-D and awake oral and nasal fiberoptic intubation will meet the needs of anesthesia providers in almost all circumstances.”

May you never experience the  emotional trauma of an airway disaster. Become an expert in bag-mask ventilation, always have access to a video laryngoscope or an Airtraq, and consider  Dr. Larson’s  Plan A-D system, described in detail in the Appendix on airway management and intubation in the newest edition of Anesthesiologists Manual of Surgical Procedures by Richard Jaffe et al (Lippincott Williams and Wilkins, 5th Edition, May 2014).

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

OBAMACARE AND ANESTHESIA

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Key questions in our specialty in 2014 related to Obamacare and anesthesia. This article was originally published in 2014, when Barack Obama was the President of the United States. A key question in our specialty at that time was “How will ObamaCare affect anesthesiology?” The following essay represents my thoughts as of 2014, prior to the Trump presidency.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but based on what I’ve read, what I’ve observed, and what I’m hearing from other physicians, these are my predictions on how ObamaCare will change anesthesia practice in the United States:

  1. There will be more patients waiting for surgery. Millions of new patients will have ObamaCare cards and coverage. A flawed premise of ObamaCare is that a system can cover more patients and yet spend less money.
  2. Reimbursement rates will be lower. How many anesthesiologists will sign up for Medicaid or Medicare-equivalent rates to care for patients? Large organizations such as university hospitals, Kaiser, Sutter, and other HMO-types will likely sign up for the best rate they can negotiate. As a result, their physicians will have increased patient numbers and lower reimbursement for their time. The insurance plans that patients purchase will have higher deductibles, and most patients will have to pay more out of pocket for their surgery and anesthesia. This will lead to patients delaying surgery, and shopping around to find the best value for their healthcare dollar.
  3. Less old anesthesiologists. Older anesthesiologists will retire early rather than work for markedly reduced pay.
  4. Less young anesthesiologists. The pipeline of new, young anesthesiologists will slow. Young men and women are unlikely to sign up for 4 years of medical school,  4 – 6 years of residency and fellowship, and an average of $150,000 of student debt if their income incentives are severely cut by ObamaCare.
  5. More certified nurse anesthetists (CRNAs). It seems apparent that ObamaCare is interested in employing cheaper providers of medical services. CRNAs will command lower salaries than anesthesiologists. The premise to be tested is whether CRNAs can provide the same care for less money. Expect to see wider use of anesthesia care teams and of independent CRNA practice. Expect the overall quality of anesthesia care to change as more CRNAs and less M.D.’s are employed.
  6. A two-tiered system. Anesthesiologists who have a choice will not sign up for reduced ObamaCare rates of reimbursement. Surgeons who have a choice will not sign up for reduced ObamaCare reimbursement. Expect a second tier of private pay medical care to exist, where patients will choose non-ObamaCare M.D.’s of their choice, and will pay these physicians whatever the physicians charge. This tier will provide higher service and shorter waiting times before surgery is performed. This tier will likely be populated by some of the finest surgeons–surgeons are unwilling to work for decreased wages. A subset of anesthesiologists will work in this upper tier of medical care, and these anesthesiologists will earn higher wages as a result.
  7. Will the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) model stumble as the Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) model did in the 1990’s? ObamaCare provides for the existence of ACO’s, which are hospital-physician entities designed to provide comprehensive health care to patients in return for bundled payments. In this model the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and the hospital (i.e. nurses, pharmacy, and the medical device industry) will divide up the bundled surgical payment. In this model it’s essential that an anesthesiologist leader has a strong presence at the negotiating table. A worrisome issue with the ACO model, as it was with the HMO model, is the flow of money. Physicians will no longer be working for their patients, but will be working for the ACO. The  primary incentive will be to be paid by the ACO, rather than to provide the best care possible.
  8. Anesthesia leadership skills will change. The physician leader of each anesthesia group must be a powerful and effective politician and economic strategist. These traits are not taught during anesthesia residency, and these traits have nothing to do with being an outstanding clinician.
  9. What about the Perioperative Surgical Home (PSH)? The American Society of Anesthesiologists is proposing the model of the PSH, in which anesthesiologists will assume leadership roles managing patient care in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative arenas. This is a desirable goal for our specialty. No physician is better equipped than an anesthesiologist to supervise patients safely through the perioperative period with the highest standards of quality and cost-control. The Perioperative Surgical Home is designed to work with the model of the Accountable Care Organization. How these systems of the Perioperative Surgical Home and the Accountable Care Organization will evolve remains to be seen. It will be the role for individual anesthesia physician leaders in each hospital to seize the new opportunities.  Rank and file anesthesiologists will likely follow their leadership.

10. Consolidation of anesthesia groups. Small anesthesia groups will likely merge into bigger groups in an effort dominate a clinical census, and therefore to negotiate higher reimbursement rates. In November, 2013, the 100-physician Medical Anesthesia Consultants Medical Group, Inc, of San Ramon, California was acquired by Sheridan Healthcare Inc, a 2,500-physician services company based in Florida. Per Sheridan’s CEO, John Carlyle, the acquisition “provides a platform that will accelerate our expansion in the California marketplace.” This was the largest merger in Northern California anesthesia history.

11. Requirement of more anesthesia clinical metrics. Government and insurance payors will require more metrics to document that the provided clinical care was excellence. A typical required metric may be a high percentage of patients who received preoperative antibiotics prior to incision, or a low percentage of patients free from postoperative nausea and vomiting. Each anesthesia groups will need to establish computerized data-capturing systems to present this information to payors. The effort to tabulate these metrics will be another incentive for anesthesia groups to merge into larger clinical entities.

In summary:  More patients, more cases, less money, more bureaucracy, less money, more CRNA providers, and less money. These are the challenges ObamaCare presents to anesthesiologists. Stay tuned. Legions of patients with ObamaCare cards will be knocking on hospital doors. The government is expecting enough anesthesiologists to sign up for ObamaCare contracts to make the new system successful. It’s impossible to tell what behaviors ObamaCare will incentivize. Each anesthesiologist has the benefit of 25+ years of education, and each anesthesiologist will make intelligent choices regarding their career and their time.

Bob Dylan once sang, “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s Farm no more.”

Time will tell if ObamaCare is Maggie’s Farm for physicians.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

HOW DOES A HEROIN OVERDOSE KILL? AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST’S VIEW

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)


On February 2, 2014, Academy Award-winning actor Phillip Seymour Hoffmann was found dead with a needle in his arm and syringes and packets of heroin in his room. How does a heroin overdose kill a person?

phillip seymour hoffman heroin overdose

Anesthesiologists are uniquely qualified to answer this question. Anesthesiologists administer intravenous narcotics every day, because narcotics are important pain-relieving drugs in anesthetic care. If an anesthesiologist is attending to you while narcotics are injected into your bloodstream, you are safe. If an addicts chooses to inject narcotics into his or her bloodstream while they are alone in their apartment, they can die.

Heroin (diacetylmorphine or morphine diacetate) is in the same category of drugs as morphine, Demerol, and fentanyl. Heroin is prescribed as a controlled drug in the United Kingdom for use as a potent analgesic or pain reliever, but the drug is not approved for any medical use in the United States.

Within minutes, injected heroin crosses from the bloodstream to the brain. Once inside the brain, heroin is metabolized to the active drug 6-monoacetylmorphine (6-MAM), and then to morphine. Each of these chemicals binds to opioid receptors in the brain, which results in heroin’s euphoric, pain relieving, and anxiety-relieving effects. The duration of a single dose of heroin is 3-4 hours.

In addition to sensations of euphoria, calmness, sleepiness, pain relief, and blunting of anxiety, narcotics cause significant decrease in both the rate of breathing and the depth of each breath. This respiratory depression can be lethal, especially at higher doses.

In all acute care medicine, whether in the operating room, the intensive care unit, the emergency room, or the battlefield, physicians follow the mantra of “Airway-Breathing-Circulation.” A doctor’s first priority to keep the upper airway open, using a variety of techniques including jaw thrusts, extending the neck, inserting an oral airway, or placement of a breathing tube.  A doctor’s second priority is to assure that breathing, or ventilation, is ongoing. The doctor may assist breathing by delivering breaths of oxygen into the patient’s lungs via a ventilation bag (e.g. an Ambu bag). A doctor’s third priority is to assure that adequate circulation, or heart function, is ongoing.

If a large dose of narcotic is administered, breathing may cease or become so obstructed by the tongue and soft palate that no air moves in and out through the lungs. If an addict injects heroin while alone in their home, and they lose consciousness, their airway may become obstructed and breathing may cease. Oxygen levels to the brain and heart will plummet. After only minutes of inadequate oxygen, their heart will arrest and the addict will die.

Simultaneous usage of additional central nervous system depressant drugs, such as alcohol, benzodiazepines (Xanax, Valium, Librium, Ativan), or narcotic pills (oxycodone, Vicodin, Percocet) along with heroin can intensify the respiratory depression, and place the addict at even higher risk of ineffective breathing and resultant cardiac arrest.

Tolerance to heroin develops quickly, and users require more of the drug to achieve the same effects. This prompts addicts to inject increasing doses to achieve the desired “high,” with the attendant risk that each increased dose will be excessive, and lead to airway obstruction, inadequate breathing, and cardiac arrest.

Intravenous heroin usage carries additional risks, including viral infection (hepatitis or AIDS) from contaminated needles, bacterial infection of the heart valves (bacterial endocarditis), reactions to contaminants (e.g. starch, talc, or other drugs) in the heroin preparation, localized infections (abscesses) at the site of injection, and powerful withdrawal symptoms on cessation of heroin use.

But cardiac arrest from respiratory depression looms as the most frequent cause of sudden death in heroin addicts.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

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*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

THE TOP 11 DISCOVERIES IN THE HISTORY OF ANESTHESIA

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Important advances in the history of anesthesia changed the specialty forever. Humans have inhabited the Earth for 200,000 years, yet the discovery of surgical anesthesia was a recent development in 1846. For thousands of years most surgical procedures were accompanied by severe pain. The only strategies available to blunt pain were to give patients alcohol or opium until they were stuporous.

In the 21st Century, modern anesthesiologists utilize dozens of medications and apply sophisticated high-tech medical equipment. How did our specialty advance from prescribing patients two shots of whiskey to administering modern anesthetics?

In chronologic order, my choices for the 11 most important advances in the history of anesthesia follow below. I’ve included comments to expound on the impact of each discovery.

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1846. THE DISCOVERY OF ETHER AS A GENERAL ANESTHETIC. The first public demonstration of general anesthesia occurred at Harvard’s Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Dr. William Morton, a local dentist, utilized inhaled ether to anesthetize patient Edward Abott.  Dr. John Warren then painlessly removed a tumor from Abbott’s neck.  Comment: This was the landmark discovery. From this point forward, painless surgery became possible.

1885. THE DISCOVERY OF INJECTABLE COCAINE AND LOCAL ANESTHESIA.  Cocaine was the first local anesthetic. Dr. William Halsted of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore first injected 4% cocaine into a patient’s forearm and concluded that cocaine blocked sensation, as the arm was numb below but not above the point of injection. The first spinal anesthetic was performed in 1885 when Dr. Leonard Corning of Germany injected cocaine between the vertebrae of a 45-year-old man and caused numbness of the patient’s legs and lower abdomen. Comment: The discovery of local anesthesia gave doctors the power to block pain in specific locations. Improved local anesthetics procaine (Novocain) and lidocaine were later discovered in 1905 and 1948, respectively.

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1896. THE DISCOVERY OF THE HYPODERMIC NEEDLE, THE SYRINGE, AND THE INJECTION OF MORPHINE. Alexander Wood of Scotland invented a hollow needle that fit on the end of a piston-style syringe, and used the syringe and needle combination to successfully treat pain by injections of morphine. Comment: The majority of anesthetic drugs today are injected intravenously. Such injections would be impossible without the invention of the syringe.

1905. DISCOVERY OF THE MEASUREMENT OF BLOOD PRESSURE BY BLOOD PRESSURE CUFF. Dr. Nikolai Korotkov of Russia described the sounds produced during auscultation with a stethoscope over a distal portion of an artery as a blood pressure cuff was deflated. These Korotkoff sounds resulted in an accurate determination of systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Comment: Anesthesiologists monitor patients repeatedly during every surgery. A patient’s vital signs are the heart rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and temperature. It would be impossible to administer safe anesthesia without blood pressure measurement. Low blood pressures may be evidence of anesthetic overdose, excessive bleeding, or heart dysfunction. High blood pressures may be evidence of inadequate anesthetic depth, or uncontrolled hypertensive heart disease.

8040085_intube_cuffed_endotracheal_tube_id_8_web_large

1913. DISCOVERY OF THE CUFFED ENDOTRACHEAL BREATHING TUBE. Sir Ivan Magill of England developed a technique of placing a breathing tube into the windpipe, and endotracheal anesthesia was born. Dr. Chevalier Jackson of Pennsylvania developed the first laryngoscope used to visualize the larynx and insert an endotracheal tube. Drs. Arthur Guedel and Ralph Waters at the University of Wisconsin discovered the cuffed endotracheal tube in 1928. This advance allowed the use of positive-pressure ventilation into a patient’s lungs. Comment: Surgery within the abdomen and chest would be impossible without controlling the airway and breathing with a tube in the trachea. As well, the critical care resuscitation mantra of Airway-Breathing-Circulation would be impossible without an endotracheal tube.

1934. THE DISCOVER OF THIOPENTAL AND INJECTABLE BARBITURATES. Dr. John Lundy of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota introduced the intravenous anesthetic sodium thiopental into anesthetic practice. Injecting Pentothal became the standard means to induce general anesthesia. Pentothal provided a more pleasant method of going to sleep than inhaling pungent ether. Comment: This was a huge breakthrough. Almost every modern anesthetic begins with the intravenous injection of an anesthetic drug. (Propofol has now replaced Pentothal)

1940. THE DISCOVERY OF CURARE AND INJECTABLE MUSCLE RELAXANTS. Dr. Harold Griffith of Montreal, Canada injected the paralyzing drug curare during general anesthesia to induce muscular relaxation requested by his surgeon. Although the existence of curare was known for many years (it was an arrow poison of the South American Indians), it was not used in surgery to deliberately cause muscle relaxation until this time. Comment: Paralyzing drugs are necessary to enable the easy insertion of endotracheal tubes into anesthetized patients, and paralysis is also essential for many abdominal and chest surgeries.

1950’s. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE POST-ANESTHESIA CARE UNIT (PACU) AND THE INTENSIVE CARE UNIT (ICU). The shock and resuscitation units organized during World War II and the Korean War resulted in efficient care for the sick and wounded. After the wars, PACU’s and ICU’s were natural extensions of these battlefield inventions. Comment: In the PACU, a patient’s airway, breathing, and circulation are observed, monitored, and treated immediately following surgery. PACU’s decrease post-operative complications. In the ICU, Airway-Breathing-Circulation management perfected in the operating room is extended to critically ill patients who are not undergoing surgery.

1956. THE DISCOVERY OF HALOTHANE, THE FIRST MODERN INHALED ANESTHETIC. British chemist Charles Suckling synthesized the inhaled anesthetic halothane. Halothane had significant advantages over ether because of halothane’s more pleasant odor, higher potency, faster onset, nonflammability, and low toxicity. Halothane gradually replaced older anesthetic vapors, and achieved worldwide acceptance. Comment: Halothane was the forerunner of isoflurane, desflurane, and sevoflurane, our modern inhaled anesthetics. These drugs have faster onset and offset, cause less nausea, and are not explosive like ether. The discovery of halothane changed inhalation anesthesia forever.

1983. THE DISCOVERY OF PULSE OXIMETRY MONITORING. The Nellcor pulse oximeter, co-developed by Stanford anesthesiologist Dr. William New, was the first commercially available device to measure the oxygen saturation in a patient’s bloodstream. The Nellcor pulse oximeter had the unique feature of lowering the audible pitch of the pulse tone as saturation dropped, giving anesthesiologists a warning that their patient’s heart and brain were in danger of low oxygen levels. Comment: The Nellcor changed patient monitoring forever. Oxygen saturation is now monitored before, during, and after surgery. Prior to Nellcor monitoring, the first sign of low oxygen levels was often a cardiac arrest. Following the invention of the Nellcor, oxygen saturation became the fifth vital sign, along with pulse rate, respiratory rate, blood pressure, and temperature.

etco2-waveforms-i4

1986.  END-TIDAL CO2 MONITORING. In 1986 the American Society of Anesthesiologists mandated continual end-tidal carbon dioxide analysis be performed using a quantitative method such as capnography, from the time of endotracheal tube/laryngeal mask placement until extubation/removal or initiating transfer to a postoperative care location. The detection and monitoring of carbon dioxide gave immediate feedback whenever ventilation of the lungs was failing. For example, an endotracheal breathing tube placed in the esophagus instead of the tracheal would yield zero (or close to zero) carbon dioxide. The end-tidal CO2 device alarms immediately, the anesthesiologist recognizes the problem, and fixes it at once. The development of pulse oximetry and end-tidal CO2 monitoring were concurrent, and because of these twin discoveries, anesthesia care became markedly safer after the 1980’s

These are the top 11 discoveries in the history of anesthesia as I see them. What will be the next successful invention to advance our specialty?  A superior pain-relieving drug? A better inhaled anesthetic? An improved monitor to insure patient safety? Top scientists and physicians worldwide are working this very day to join this list. Good luck to each of them.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

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*
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*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

HOW RISKY IS A TONSILLECTOMY?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 2 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

13-year-old Jahi McMath of Oakland, California suffered sudden bleeding from her nose and mouth and cardiac arrest following a December 9th 2013 tonsillectomy, a surgery intended to help treat her obstructive sleep apnea. After the bleeding she lapsed into a coma. Three days later she was declared brain-dead.

tonsillectomy-recovery-day-by-day-12

How could this happen?

Behind circumcision and ear tubes, tonsillectomy is the third most common surgical procedure performed on children in the United States. 530,000 tonsillectomies are performed children under the age of 15 each year. Tonsillectomy is not a minor procedure. It involves airway surgery, often in a small child, and often in a child with obstructive sleep apnea. The surgery involves a risk of bleeding into the airway. The published mortality associated with tonsillectomy ranges from 1:12,000 to 1:40,000. 

Between 1915 and the 1960’s, tonsillectomy was the most common surgery in the United States, done largely to treat chronic throat infections. After the 1970’s, the incidence of tonsillectomies dropped, as pediatricians realized the procedure had limited success in treating chronic throat infections. The number of tonsillectomies has increased again in the last thirty years, as a treatment for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). Currently 90 percent of tonsillectomies are performed to treat OSA. Only 1 – 4 % of children have OSA, but many of these children exhibit behavioral problems such as growth retardation, poor school performance, or daytime fatigue. The American Academy of Otolaryngology concluded that “a growing body of evidence indicates that tonsillectomy is an effective treatment for sleep apnea.”

Tonsillar and adenoid hypertrophy are the most common causes of sleep-disordered breathing in children. Obstructive sleep apnea is defined as a “disorder of breathing during sleep characterized by prolonged upper airway obstruction and/or intermittent complete obstruction that disrupts normal ventilation during sleep.” (Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th edition, 2009, Chapter 82).

In OSA patients, enlarged tonsils can exacerbate loud snoring, decrease oxygen levels, and cause obstruction to breathing. Removal of the tonsils can improve the diameter of the breathing passageway. Specific diagnosis of OSA can be made with an overnight sleep study (polysomnography), but applying this test to large populations of children is a significant expense. Currently only about 10 percent of otolaryngologists request a sleep study in children with sleep-disordered breathing prior to surgery (Laryngoscope 2006;116(6):956-958). In our surgical practice in Northern California, most pediatricians and otolaryngologists forego the preoperative overnight sleep study if the patient has symptoms of obstructed sleep, confirmed by a physical exam that reveals markedly enlarged tonsils.

Every tonsillectomy requires general anesthesia, and anesthesiologists become experts in the care of tonsillectomy patients. Prior to surgery the anesthesiologist will review the chart, interview the parent(s), and examine the child’s airway. Most children under the age of 10 will be anesthetized by breathing sevoflurane via an anesthesia mask, which is held by the anesthesiologist. Following the child’s loss of consciousness, the anesthesiologist will place an intravenous (IV) catheter in the child’s arm. The anesthesiologist then inserts a breathing tube into the child’s windpipe, and turns the operating table 90 degrees away so the surgeon has access to operate on the throat. The surgeon will move the breathing tube to the left and right sides of the mouth while he or she removes the right and left tonsils. (note: children older than the age of 10 will usually accept an awake placement of an IV by the anesthesiologist, and anesthetic induction is accomplished by the IV injection of sleep drugs including midazolam and propofol, rather than by breathing sevoflurane via an anesthesia mask).

The child remains asleep until the tonsils are removed, and all bleeding from the surgical site is controlled. The anesthesiologist then discontinues general anesthetic drugs and removes the breathing tube when the child awakens. Care is taken to assure that the airway is open and that breathing is adequate. Oxygen is administered until the child is alert. Tonsillectomy is painful, and intravenous opioid drugs such as fentanyl or morphine are commonly administered to relieve pain. The opioids depress respiration, and monitoring of oxygen levels and breathing is routinely done until the child leaves the surgical facility.

Most tonsillectomy patients have surgery as an outpatient and are discharged home within hours after surgery. Prior to the 1960’s patients were hospitalized overnight routinely post-tonsillectomy. In 1968 a case series of 40,000 outpatient tonsillectomies with no deaths was reported, and performance of tonsillectomy on an outpatient basis became routine after that time. (Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th edition, 2009, Chapter 33).

Published risk factors for postoperative complications after tonsillectomy include: (1) age younger than 3 years; (2) evidence of OSA; (3) other systemic disorders of the heart and lungs); (4) presence of airway abnormalities; (5) bleeding abnormities; and (6) living a long distance from an adequate health care facility, adverse weather conditions, or home conditions not consistent with close observation, cooperativeness, and ability to return quickly to the hospital. (Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th edition, 2009, Chapter 82).

The incidence of post-tonsillectomy bleeding increases with age. In a national audit of more than 33,000 tonsillectomies, hemorrhage rates were 1.9% in children younger than 5 years old, 3% in children 5 to 15 years old, and 4.9% in individuals older than 16. The return to the operating room rate was 0.8% in children younger than 5 years old, 0.8% in children 5 to 15 years old, and 1.2% in individuals older than 16. (Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th edition, 2009, Chapter 75).

Primary bleeds usually occur within 6 hours of surgery. Hemorrhage is usually from a venous or capillary bleed, rather than from an artery. Complications occur because of hypovolemia (massive blood loss), the risk of blood aspiration into the lungs, or difficulty with replacing the breathing tube should emergency resuscitation be necessary. Early blood loss can be difficult to diagnose, as the blood is swallowed and not seen. Signs suggesting hemorrhage are an unexplained increasing heart rate, excessive swallowing, pale skin color, restlessness, sweating, and swelling of the airway causing obstruction. Low blood pressure is a late feature. (Miller’s Anesthesia, 7th edition, 2009, Chapter 75).

What happened to 13-year-old Jahi McMath in Oakland following her tonsillectomy? We have no access to her medical records, and all we know is what was reported to the press. The following text was published in the 12/21/2013 Huffington Post:

After her daughter underwent a supposedly routine tonsillectomy and was moved to a recovery room, Nailah Winkfield began to fear something was going horribly wrong.

Jahi was sitting up in bed, her hospital gown bloody, and holding a pink cup full of blood.

“Is this normal?” Winkfield repeatedly asked nurses.

With her family and hospital staff trying to help and comfort her, Jahi kept bleeding profusely for the next few hours then went into cardiac arrest, her mother said.

Despite the family’s description of the surgery as routine, the hospital said in a memorandum presented to the court Friday that the procedure was a “complicated” one.

“Ms. McMath is dead and cannot be brought back to life,” the hospital said in the memo, adding: “Children’s is under no legal obligation to provide medical or other intervention for a deceased person.”

In an interview at Children’s Hospital Oakland on Thursday night, Winkfield described the nightmarish turn of events after her daughter underwent tonsil removal surgery to help with her sleep apnea.

She said that even before the surgery, her daughter had expressed fears that she wouldn’t wake up after the operation. To everyone’s relief, she appeared alert, was talking and even ate a Popsicle afterward.

But about a half-hour later, shortly after the girl was taken to the intensive care unit, she began bleeding from her mouth and nose despite efforts by hospital staff and her family.

While the bleeding continued, Jahi wrote her mother notes. In one, the girl asked to have her nose wiped because she felt it running. Her mother said she didn’t want to scare her daughter by saying it was blood.

Family members said there were containers of Jahi’s blood in the room, and hospital staff members were providing transfusions to counteract the blood loss.

“I don’t know what a tonsillectomy is supposed to look like after you have it, but that blood was un-normal for anything,” Winkfield said.

The family said hospital officials told them in a meeting Thursday that they want to take the girl off life support quickly.

“I just looked at the doctor to his face and I told him you better not touch her,” Winkfield recalled.

Despite the family’s description of the surgery as routine, the hospital said in a memorandum presented to the court Friday that the procedure was a “complicated” one.

 

Despite the precaution of hospitalizing Jahi McMath post-tonsillectomy, when her bleeding developed it seems the management of her Airway-Breathing-Circulation did not go well. I’ve attended to bleeding post-tonsillectomy patients, and it can be a harrowing experience. It can be an extreme challenge to see through the blood, past the swollen throat tissues post-surgery, and locate the opening to the windpipe so that one can insert the breathing tube needed to supply oxygen to the lungs. Assistance from a second anesthesiologist is often needed. The surgeon will be unable to treat or control severe bleeding until an airway tube is in place.  Difficult intubation and airway management can lead to decreased oxygen levels and ventilation, jeopardizing oxygen delivery to the brain and heart. If severe bleeding is unchecked and transfusion of blood cannot be applied swiftly, the resulting low blood pressure and shock can contribute to the lack of oxygen to a patient’s brain.

A bleeding tonsillectomy patient can be an anesthesiologist’s nightmare.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

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Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

READING IN THE OPERATING ROOM

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

You’re an attending anesthesiologist. You enter another colleague’s operating room to give him a bathroom break during his 6-hour plastic surgery case, and you find him tapping on an iPad and reading in the operating room. What do you do?

Discussion:  Is it OK for the anesthesiologist to be reading in the operating room? Is it OK for him to be referencing the Internet? Answering email? Sending text messages on his smartphone? Or should that anesthesiologist be staring transfixed at the monitor screen for hour after hour, maintaining flawless vigilance?

In the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation Newsletter Summer 1995 edition, Dr. Matthew Weinger discussed the issue of reading in the operating room. He emphasized that there were no scientific data on the impact of reading on anesthesia provider vigilance or task performance. He cited data that anesthesiologists are ‘idle’ during 40% of routine cases. He asserted that “anesthesia providers read during these idle periods to prevent boredom, and that boredom was a problem of information underload, insufficient work challenge, and under-stimulation…Adding tasks to a monotonous job may decrease boredom and dividing attention among several tasks (time-sharing) may, in some circumstances, actually improve monitoring performance.” Weinger concluded that, “in the absence of controlled studies on the effect of reading in the operating room on anesthesia vigilance and task performance, no definitive or generalizable recommendations can be made. The decision must remain a personal one based on recognition of one’s capabilities and limitations. From a broader perspective, the anesthesia task including associated equipment must be optimized to minimize boredom and yet not be so continuously busy as to be stressful.”

In the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation Newsletter, Fall 2004 edition, Dr. Terri Monk opined that reading in the OR seriously compromised patient safety. She was opposed to reading for the following reasons:

  1. Reading diverts one’s attention from the patient.
  2. The patient is paying for the anesthesiologist’s undivided attention, and most well-informed patients want to know if the anesthesiologist plans to turn over a portion of their anesthesia care to a nurse or resident. If we are obliged to honestly answer that concern, then, shouldn’t we also be obliged to inform the patient that we plan to read during a portion of the anesthetic?
  3. Reading is medico-legally dangerous. Dr. Monk wrote, “Any plaintiff’s attorney would love to have a case in which the circulating nurse would testify, ‘Dr. Giesecke was reading when the cardiac arrest occurred. Yep, he was reading the Wall Street Journal. You know he has a lot of valuable stocks that he must keep track of.’ It is possible that if anesthesiologists informed their malpractice carriers that they routinely read during cases, the companies might raise premiums or cancel malpractice coverage.”
  4. The practice of reading in the OR projects a negative public image. Nurses, technicians, and surgeons may think the anesthesiologist is less professional.

A 2009 study looked at 172 selected general anesthetic cases in an academic medical center. Vigilance was assessed by the response time to a randomly illuminated alarm light. Reading was observed in 35% of cases. In the 60 cases that involved reading, providers read during 25  +/- 3% of maintenance time but not during induction or emergence. Vigilance to the alarm light was no different between readers and non-readers.

Miller’s Anesthesia (7th Edition, 2009, chapter 6) states, “Although it is indisputable that reading can distract attention from patient care, there are no data at present to determine the degree to which reading does distract attention, especially if the practice is confined to low-workload portions of a case. Furthermore, many anesthetists pointed out that reading as a distraction is not necessarily any different from many other kinds of activities not related to patient care that are routinely accepted, such as idle conversation among personnel.”

A 2012 study concluded there were no data concerning the effects of the use of laptops and smartphones in the operating theatre on anesthetist performance, and that these devices were now in frequent use. They discussed the use of laptops and smartphones in regards to the two pertinent issues of vigilance and multitasking. There were data that in some circumstances the addition of a secondary task (i.e. using a laptop or smartphone) during periods of low stimulation can improve vigilance and overall task performance, but the workload and the nature of the secondary task were critical. The authors made the following points regarding the nature of anesthesia work and the factors that affect performance in anesthesia:

  1. Anesthesia involves multi-tasking and the maintenance of situational awareness. Studies have shown that attending to a range of tasks simultaneously is a key characteristic of anesthetic practice, and that anesthetists are superior to non-anesthetists in performing additional tasks while monitoring patients.
  2. Anesthetists typically only glance at monitors. Covert observations of anesthetists in British Columbia revealed subjects spent less than 5% of their time observing the monitoring display. This was made up of brief glances (1.5 to 2 seconds duration) occurring 15 – 20 times during each 10-minute segment of time.
  3.    Anesthetic work is reduced during prolonged maintenance, potentially resulting in boredom and/or secondary activities being undertaken. The maintenance phase in some anesthetics (typically cases of longer duration, lower complexity and where the patient is stable) may be a time of low workload and infrequent task demands. In a study of 105 anesthesia clinicians, half reported being bored infrequently, but 90% admitted to occasional episodes of extreme boredom. Boredom can result in severely decreased vigilance if the anesthetist is suffering from sleep deprivation.
  4.    The authors concluded there was no evidence to support a blanket prohibition on the use of smartphones and laptops in the operating theatre, and there was good reason to avoid edicts that are not supported by solid evidence. They stated, “There is no doubt that reading or computer usage gives the appearance of being less attentive, even if there are no measurable effects on routine care…Computer and phone tasks that also require immediate responses appear to provide a greater risk than reading (whether from a book or screen). While boredom may be cognitively unpleasant, there is no evidence of anesthetist boredom (in the absence of sleep) harming patients.”

I recently attended the American Society of Anesthesiologists national convention in San Francisco. At the conclusion of the meeting, the ASA emailed me a full text edition of the Refresher Course lectures as an email attachment, in a format designed to be downloaded onto a computer. Like myself, more than 10,000 anesthesiologist attendees of the ASA meeting will now have access to the Refresher Course curriculum on their laptops or iPads. Will some of them read these Refresher Courses during the stable maintenance phases of anesthetics in their operating rooms? Perhaps.

Returning to the Clinical Case for Discussion above, what will you do about your colleague you discovered using his iPad in the operating room? My guess is, based on what has been published in the anesthesia literature, you’ll give him the bathroom break as intended, and say nothing about his use of the iPad in the operating room.

 

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

*
*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

HOW TO WAKE UP PATIENTS PROMPTLY FOLLOWING GENERAL ANESTHETICS

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 14 Comments
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Two patients arrive simultaneously in the recovery room following general endotracheal anesthetics. One patient is unresponsive and requires an oral airway to maintain adequate respiration. In the next bed, the second patient is awake, comfortable and conversant. How can this be? It occurs because different anesthetists practice differently. Some can wake up patients promptly, and some cannot.

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Does it matter if a patient wakes up promptly after general anesthesia? It does. An awake, alert patient will have minimal airway or breathing problems. When it’s time to walk away from your patient in the recovery room, you’ll worry less if your patient is already talking to you and has minimal residual effects of general anesthesia. Whether the surgery was a radical neck dissection, a carotid endarterectomy, a laparotomy, or a facelift, it’s preferable to have your patient as awake as possible in the recovery room.

What can you do to assure your patients wake up promptly? A Pubmed search will give you little guidance. There’s a paucity of data or evidence in the medical literature on how to wake patients faster. You’ll find data on ultra-short acting drugs such as propofol and remifentanil. This data helps, but the skill of waking up a patient on demand is more an art than a science. Textbooks give you little advice. Anesthesiologist’s Manual of Surgical Procedures, (4th Edition, 2009), edited by Jaffe and Samuels, has an Appendix that lists Standard Adult Anesthetic Protocols, but there is little specific information on how to titrate the drugs to ensure a timely wakeup.

Based on 29 years of administering over 20,000 anesthetics, this is my advice on how to wake patients promptly from general anesthesia:

  1. Propofol. Use propofol for induction of anesthesia. You may or may not choose to infuse propofol during maintenance anesthesia (e.g. at a rate of 50 mcg/kg/min) but if you do, I recommend turning off the infusion at least 10 minutes before planned wakeup. This allows adequate time for the drug to redistribute and for serum propofol levels to decrease enough to avoid residual sleepiness.
  2. Sevoflurane. Sevoflurane is relatively insoluble and its effects wear off quickly when the drug is ventilated out of the lungs at the conclusion of surgery. I recommend a maintenance concentration of 1.5% inspired sevoflurane in most patients. I drop this concentration to 1% while the surgeon is applying the dressings. When the dressings are finished, I turn off the sevoflurane and continue ventilation to pump the sevoflurane out of the patient’s lungs and bloodstream. The expired concentration will usually drop to 0.2% within 5-10 minutes, a level at which most patients will open their eyes.
  3. Nitrous oxide. Unless there is a contraindication (e.g. laparoscopy or thoractomy) I recommend you use 50% nitrous oxide. It’s relatively insoluble, and adding nitrous oxide will permit you to utilize less sevoflurane. I recommend turning off nitrous oxide when the surgeon is applying the dressings at the end of the case, and turning the oxygen flow rate up to 10 liters/minute while maintaining ventilation to wash out the remaining nitrous oxide.
  4. Narcotics. Use narcotics sparingly and wisely. I see overzealous use of narcotics as a problem. Prior to inserting an endotracheal tube, it’s reasonable to administer 50 – 100 mcg of fentanyl to a healthy adult or 0 -50 mcg of fentanyl to a geriatric patient. A small dose serves to blunt the hemodynamic responses of tachycardia or hypertension associated with larynogoscopy and intubation. Bolusing 250 mcg of fentanyl prior to intubation is an unnecessary overdose. The use of ongoing doses of narcotics during an anesthetic depends on the amount of surgical stimulation and the anticipated amount of post-operative pain. You may administer intermittent increments of narcotic (I may give a 50-100 mcg dose of fentanyl every hour) but I recommend your final narcotic bolus be given no less than 30 minutes prior to the anticipated wakeup. Undesired high levels of narcotic at the conclusion of surgery contribute to oversedation and slow awakening. If your patient complains of pain at wakeup, further narcotic is titrated intravenously to control the pain. Your patient’s verbal responses are your best monitor regarding how much narcotic is needed. Your goal at wakeup should be to have adequate narcotic levels and effect, but no more narcotic than needed.
  5. Intra-tracheal lidocaine. I recommend spraying 4 ml of 4% lidocaine into the larynx and trachea at laryngoscopy prior to inserting the endotracheal tube. I can’t cite you any data, but it’s my impression that patients demonstrate less bucking on endotracheal tubes at awakening when lidocaine was sprayed into their tracheas. Less bucking enables you to decrease anesthetic levels further while the endotracheal tube is still in situ.
  6. Local anesthetics. Local anesthetics are your friends at the conclusion of surgery. If the surgeon is able to blunt post-operative pain with local anesthesia or if you are able to blunt post-operative pain with a neuroaxial block or a regional block, your patient will require zero or minimal intravenous narcotics, and your patient will wake up more quickly.
  7. Muscle relaxants. Use muscle relaxants sparingly. Nothing will slow a wakeup more than a patient in whom you cannot reverse the paralysis with a standard dose of neostigmine. This necessitates a delay in extubation until muscle strength returns. Muscle relaxation is necessary when you choose to insert an endotracheal tube at the beginning of an anesthetic, but many cases do not require paralysis for the duration of the surgery. When you must administer muscle relaxation throughout surgery, use a nerve stimulator and be careful not to abolish all twitch responses. Avoid long-acting paralyzing drugs such as pancuronium, as you will have difficulty reversing the paralysis if surgery concludes soon after you’ve administered a dose. Use rocuronium instead. Avoid administering a dose of rocuronium if you believe the surgery will conclude within the next 30 minutes—it may be difficult to reverse the paralysis, and this will delay wakeup.
  8. Laryngeal Mask Airway (LMA). When possible, substitute an LMA for an endotracheal tube. Wakeups will be smoother, muscle relaxants are unnecessary, and narcotic doses can be titrated with the aim of keeping the patient’s spontaneous respiratory rate between 15- 20 breaths per minute.
  9. Temperature monitoring and forced air warming. Cold is an anesthetic. Strive to keep your patient normothermic by using forced air warming. If your patient’s core temperature is low, wakeup will be delayed.

10. Consider remaining in the operating room after surgery until your patient is awake enough to respond to verbal commands. This is my practice, and I recommend it for safety reasons. In the operating room you have all your airway equipment, drugs, and suction at your fingertips. If an unexpected emergence event occurs, you’re prepared. If an unexpected emergence event occurs in an obtunded patient in the recovery room, your resuscitation equipment will not be as readily available. If your patient is responsive to verbal commands in the operating room, your patient will be wakeful on arrival in the recovery room.

Is this protocol a recipe? Yes, it is. You’ll have your own recipe, and your ingredients may vary from mine. You may choose to administer desflurane instead of sevoflurane. You may choose sufentanil, morphine, or meperidine instead of fentanyl. My advice still applies. Use as little narcotic as is necessary, and try not to administer intravenous narcotic during the last 30 minutes of surgery. If you use a remifentanil infusion, taper the infusion off early enough so the patient is wakeful at the conclusion of surgery.

The principles I’ve recommended here are time-tested and practical. Follow these guidelines and you’ll experience two heartwarming scenarios from time to time:  1) Patients in the recovery room will ask you, “You mean the surgery is done already? I can’t believe it,” and 2) Recovery room nurses will ask you, “Did this patient really have a general anesthetic?  She’s so awake!”

Your chest will swell with pride, and you’ll feel like an artist. Good luck.

 

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

 

*
*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

 

LEARN MORE ABOUT RICK NOVAK’S FICTION WRITING AT RICK NOVAK.COM BY CLICKING ON THE PICTURE BELOW:

DSC04882_edited

 

 

HOW IS YOUR ANESTHESIA BILL CALCULATED?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

How is your anesthesia bill calculated?

 

anesthesia billing

 

It depends. An anesthesiologist’s bill depends on several factors, including:

  1. The duration of the anesthesia care
  2. The complexity of the surgical procedure
  3. The insurance status of the patient

Let’s look at each of these factors in turn:

1. The duration of the anesthesia care.  Anesthesia provider bills are calculated by a simple formula:

Amount of Bill = (Number of Base Units + Number of Time Units) X the dollar value of a Unit.

Every anesthesia company assigns a monetary value to an anesthesia “Unit.” A “Unit” is a 15-minute length of time of anesthesia service. (The price of an anesthesia Unit varies. More on this topic later).

The total amount of an anesthesia bill depends largely on the duration of the anesthesia service, which depends on the duration of the surgery.

Anesthesia time begins when the anesthesia provider starts attending to the patient in the pre-operative area, and ends when the anesthesia provider transfers care to the post-anesthesia care unit (PACU) nurse or to the intensive care unit (ICU) nurse following the surgery.

For most surgeries, a typical timeline involves:

10-15 minutes of anesthesia exam in the pre-operative area,

5 minutes of time transporting the patient to the operating room,

5-10 minutes time inducing anesthesia,

10–40 minutes of time positioning, prepping, and draping the patient,

the entire surgical duration,

5-15 minutes of time to wake the patient up,

5-10 minutes of time to transport the patient to the PACU or ICU,

and 5-10 minutes time to sign the patient over to the nurse’s care in the PACU or ICU.

In the PACU, the anesthesiologist is responsible for the patient’s vital signs, pain control, nausea therapy, and the timing of the patient’s discharge from the PACU, even though the anesthesia billing time concluded when he or she signed the patient’s care to the PACU nurse. Typically the anesthesia provider returns to the pre-operative area to meet the next patient at this time, and the billing time for the next patient commences when the anesthesia provider begins attending to the next patient.

2. The complexity of the scheduled surgical procedure. The Base Unit value for any anesthetic varies with the complexity of the scheduled surgery. The Base Unit value can be as low as 3 Units for a simple procedure such as a finger or a toe surgery, or as high as 25 Units for open-heart surgery.  The Base Unit values are cataloged in a publication called the ASA (American Society of Anesthesiologists) Relative Value Guide. The Base Unit value reflects the degree of work and risk involved in the anesthetic management for each type of surgery.

3. The insurance status of the patient. The United States government sets a cap on how much Medicare and Medicaid patients can be billed. The dollar value per anesthesia Unit is severely discounted for Medicare and Medicaid patients to a number as low as one-fourth to one-fifth the amount a non-Medicare or Medicaid patient is billed.

                                                                                                                                               

FURTHER DISCUSSION…

THE PRICE OF AN ANESTHESIA UNIT: The price of an anesthesia Unit is set by the billing anesthesiologist and his or her anesthesia company. The price tends to be higher in major metropolitan centers, lower in rural areas, and lowest for Medicare patients. The price of an anesthesia Unit may vary from as high as $140/Unit in a major metropolitan area to a low of $20/Unit for a Medicare or a Medicaid patient.

EXAMPLE: Let’s look at a sample bill for an elbow surgery. The Base Unit value for elbow surgery is 3 Units. The surgery time was 1 hour, but the total anesthesia time from pre-operative area to the PACU sign out was 1 hour and 45 minutes. One hour and 45 minutes equals 7 Time Units. Let’s assume a Unit value price of $90/Unit.

Using the formula above,

Amount of Bill = (Number of Base Units + Number of Time Units)  X  the dollar value of a Unit.

OR

Amount of Bill = (3 Units + 7 Units) X $90/Unit = 10 X 90 = $900.

Will the anesthesia provider collect $900? Most likely not. Insurance companies negotiate with physicians, and the result of such negotiations may result in significant discounts paid on Unit values compared to billed rates. If the anesthesia group has a signed contract with an insurance company, the agreed reimbursement may be $60/Unit, and the maximal allowed bill would be $600.

In addition, if your insurance coverage requires you to pay for 20% of the bill, the insurance company may only pay 80%, or $480, and you will be expected to pay $120. If the anesthesiology company does not have a contract with the insurance provider, the insurance company will reimburse an out-of-network amount, usually less than the full $900, and you may be responsible for the balance of the bill (unless the anesthesia company is willing to discount the bill under these circumstances).

There are advantages of growing old. If you’re a Medicare patient, your anesthesia bill may total only $200:

(3 Units + 7 Units) X $20/Unit = 10 X 20 = $200.

COSMETIC SURGERY: Insurance companies do not pay for plastic surgeries such as liposuction, breast implants, or facelifts. Patients must pay the surgeon, operating room, and anesthesia bills in advance. Most anesthesiologists discount their customary rates in return for cash prepayment.

THE FUTURE: The nature of anesthesia billing may change in the future to embrace a concept known as “bundled payments.” Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, outlines provisions for bundled payments to hospitals rather than the traditional fee-for-service reimbursements described above. In a bundled payment model, the medical team will receive a lump sum from the government (or from an insurance company) for a surgical procedure. The medical center and physicians will negotiate and decide how to divide up the money between the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, and to the hospital (the hospital share will cover nurse salaries, technician salaries, supplies, and the overhead to run the hospital).

To date there is little data to support the advantage of bundled payments. The government hopes to save money by limiting what it pays out per procedure. Time will tell how prevalent this reimbursement model will be in the future of American healthcare economics.

When you buy retail goods, prices are available prior to purchase. With medical bills, you rarely know what the price of your medical care will be until you receive the bill weeks afterward. This is likely to change. There is momentum moving toward transparent pricing of medical fees, including listing of physician fees and facility fees prior to patient care. In the future you may have access to physician, hospital, and surgery center pricing to assist you in making your medical care choices.

SUMMARY: Your anesthesia bill will depend on how complex a surgery you are scheduled for, how long it takes to complete the procedure, and what kind of insurance coverage you have. Armed with this information, you may choose to contact your surgeon, the anesthesia company he or she works with, and your insurance company prior to your surgery to understand what your anesthesia bill is likely to be.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

 

*
*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

ANESTHESIA FACTS FOR NON-MEDICAL PEOPLE: ANESTHETIC TECHNIQUES

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

This column is for non-medical laypeople, and pertains to the different types of anesthetic techniques used in the 21st century. See below:

GENERAL ANESTHESIA

A general anesthetic renders the patient asleep and insensitive to pain for surgery. Prior to beginning anesthesia, the anesthesiologist places monitors of blood pressure, electrocardiogram, pulse and oxygen saturation of the blood. Before the anesthetic, oxygen is administered by mask to fill the patient’s lungs with 100% oxygen. Most adult patients are given general anesthesia by intravenous injection, usually of the medication propofol. This injection causes the patient to lose consciousness within 10 – 20 seconds. This is called the induction of anesthesia. The maintenance of anesthesia during surgery is done by mixing an anesthesia gas or gases with the oxygen. Typical inhaled anesthesia gases are nitrous oxide, sevoflurane, or isoflurane. Sometimes a continuous infusion of intravenous anesthetic such as propofol is given as well. The choice and dose of drugs is done by the anesthesia attending, based on the patient’s size, age, the type of surgery, and the anesthesiologist’s experience.

Many patients are given prophylactic anti-nausea medication during the anesthetic. If postoperative pain is anticipated, the anesthesiologist can also administer intravenous narcotics such a morphine, meperidine (Demerol), or fentanyl.

Depending on the patient’s medical condition and type of surgery, the anesthesiologist may protect the patient’s airway during the general anesthetic by placing a breathing tube through the mouth, either an endotracheal tube (ET Tube) into the patient’s windpipe, or a laryngeal mask airway (LMA) just above the voice box.

At the conclusion of surgery, the general anesthetic gases and/or intravenous anesthetic infusion(s) are discontinued. The patient usually regains consciousness within 5 – 15 minutes. The patient is then transferred to the recovery room.

SPINAL ANESTHESIA

Spinal anesthesia is done by the injection of local anesthetic solution into the low back into the subarachnoid space. Prior to beginning anesthesia, the anesthesiologist places monitors of blood pressure, electrocardiogram, pulse and oxygen saturation of the blood. The word subarachnoid translates to “below the arachnoid”. The arachnoid is one of the layers of the meninges covering the nerves of the spinal column. In the subarachnoid space lies the cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) which surrounds the spinal cord and brain. In a spinal anesthetic, the subarachnoid space is located with a needle by the anesthesiologist, and the appropriate anesthetic medications are injected.

Local anesthetics, such as lidocaine or bupivicaine (brand name Marcaine), given into the subarachnoid space, bring on sensory and motor numbness. The anesthesiologist chooses the dose and type of drug depending on the patient’s age, size, height, medical condition, and the type of surgery.

Following the onset of numbness from spinal anesthesia, the patient may either stay awake for surgery, or more often intravenous anesthesia is given to achieve a light sleep. Sometimes light general anesthesia is given to supplement spinal anesthesia.

EPIDURAL ANESTHESIA

Epidural anesthesia is done by the injection of local anesthetic solution, with or without a narcotic medication, into the low back into the epidural space. Prior to beginning anesthesia, the anesthesiologist places monitors of blood pressure, electrocardiogram, pulse and oxygen saturation of the blood. The word epidural translates to “outside the dura”. The dura is the outermost lining of the meninges covering the nerves of the spinal column. The epidural space is located with a needle by the anesthesiologist, and the appropriate anesthetic medications are injected.   Often, a tiny catheter is left in the epidural space, taped to the patient’s low back, to allow repeated doses of the medication to be given.  The catheter is removed at the end of surgery, or sometimes days later if continued epidural medications are administered for postoperative pain control.

Local anesthetics, such as lidocaine or bupivicaine (brand name Marcaine), given into the epidural space, bring on sensory and motor numbness. The anesthesiologist chooses the dose and type of drug depending on the patient’s age, size, height, medical condition, and the type of surgery.

Following the onset of numbness from epidural anesthesia, the patient may either stay awake for surgery, or more often intravenous sedation is given to achieve a light sleep. Sometimes light general anesthesia is given to supplement epidural anesthesia.

REGIONAL ANESTHESIA

Regional anesthesia is the injection of local anesthetic (either lidocaine or Marcaine) near a nerve to block that nerve’s function.  Examples of regional anesthesia include arm blocks (axillary block, interscalene block, subclavicular block), and leg blocks (femoral block, sciatic block, popliteal block, ankle block).  An advantage of regional anesthesia blocks is that the patient may remain awake for the surgery.  If desired, the anesthesia provider may administer intravenous sedation or general anesthesia in addition to the regional anesthetic, to allow the patient to sleep during the surgery–the advantage of this combined anesthetic technique is the regional anesthetic blocks all surgical pain and less sleep drugs are required.

INTRAVENOUS SEDATION ANESTHESIA

Some minor surgical procedures (for example: breast biopsies, eyelid surgery, some hernia surgeries) can be done with the combination of local anesthesia plus intravenous anesthesia sedation. Prior to beginning anesthesia, the anesthesiologist places monitors of blood pressure, electrocardiogram, pulse and oxygen saturation of the blood. The anesthesiologist is present for the entire surgery, and administers intravenous sedatives as required for the patient’s comfort and the surgeon’s needs.  If the sedation is deep enough, the intravenous sedation will be termed general anesthesia. While the patient is sedated, the surgeon usually injects local anesthetics into the surgical site to block both surgical and post operative pain.

Vigilance by an anesthesiologist during intravenous sedation is also known as Monitored Anesthesia Care, or MAC.

PEDIATRIC ANESTHESIA

Because the separation of a young child from his or her parents can be one of the most distressing aspects of the perioperative experience, many children benefit significantly from oral preoperative sedation with midazolam. This relatively pleasant-tasting liquid is given by mouth about twenty minutes prior to the start of the anesthetic. Although the midazolam rarely causes children to fall asleep, it does reduce anxiety dramatically, allowing for a much smoother separation from parents. It also tends to cause a wonderful short term amnesia, so that the children often have no recollection of separating from their parents, or even of going to the operating room.
Although the initial anesthetic is usually administered via an intravenous infusion in adult patients, this approach requires starting an IV while the patient is still awake. This technique would be quite unpopular with younger children.  Most young children prefer to go to sleep breathing a gas, a technique known as an inhalation induction. This technique is used for almost all routine surgeries, but cannot safely be employed in certain rare situations, such as emergencies.

An inhalation induction consists of the child breathing a relatively pleasant smelling anesthetic vapor – usually sevoflurane – via a facemask for approximately 30 to 60 seconds. The child loses consciousness while breathing the gas, and the IV can then be started painlessly. Generally, the child continues to breath the gas throughout the duration of the surgery, either via the facemask or an endotracheal tube, depending on the duration and type of surgery. It is this breathing of the gas which keeps the child anesthetized. At the end of the surgery, the gas is discontinued, and the child begins to awaken.

Prior to awakening, children may be given either analgesics (pain medicines) or anti-emetics (drugs which reduce the likelihood of nausea and vomiting). The type of surgery will determine which of the many possible medications will be used for these purposes. The purpose of these medications is to make the child’s awakening as calm and pleasant as possible. Equally important in this regard is reuniting the child with his or her parents as quickly as possible.
Despite best attempts, it is important for parents to realize that children, especially those less than five years of age, often are somewhat cranky and irritable following anesthesia and surgery. We do our best to minimize this, but we cannot prevent it in all cases. Similarly, some children will experience postoperative nausea and vomiting despite receiving medications which are intended to prevent it.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

 

*
*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

ANESTHESIA FOR SPECIALTY SURGERIES

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT 1 Comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

This column is specifically for my non-medical layperson readers, and is a discussion of the different types of anesthesia for specialty surgeries. See below:

 

I.  CHILDBIRTH (OBSTETRIC ANESTHESIA):

Most obstetric anesthesia is for either vaginal delivery or for Cesarean sections.

Anesthesia for Vaginal Delivery:  Anesthesia for vaginal delivery is utilized to diminish the pain of labor contractions, while leaving the mother as alert as possible, with as muscle strength as possible, to be able to push the baby out at the time of delivery.  Anesthesia for labor and vaginal delivery is usually accomplished by epidural injection of the local anesthetics bupivicaine (brand name Marcaine) or ropivicaine.

is done by the injection of local anesthetic solution, with or without a narcotic medication, into the low back into the epidural space. Prior to beginning anesthesia, the anesthesiologist places monitors of blood pressure, electrocardiogram, pulse and oxygen saturation of the blood.

The word epidural translates to “outside the dura”. The dura is the outermost lining of the meninges covering the nerves of the spinal column. The epidural space is located with a needle by the anesthesiologist, and the appropriate anesthetic medications are injected.   Often, a tiny catheter is left in the epidural space, taped to the patient’s low back, to allow repeated doses of the medication to be given.  The catheter is removed after childbirth.

Anesthesia for Cesarean Section: Cesarean section is a surgical procedure in which the obstetrician makes an incision through the skin of the lower abdomen, and through the wall of the uterus, or womb, to extract the baby without the child requiring a vaginal delivery.  Anesthesia for Cesarean section is usually a spinal or an epidural anesthetic, which leaves the mother as alert as possible, while rendering surgical anesthesia to her abdomen and pelvis.  Spinal or epidural anesthesia is accomplished by injection of local anesthetics, with or without a narcotic medication, into the low back into the subarachnoid or the epidural space. The anesthesiologist remains present for the entire surgical procedure, to assure that the mother is comfortable and that all vital signs are maintained as close to normal limits as possible.

In a minority of cases, the anesthesia provider will administer a general anesthetic for Cesarean section surgery.  The most common indications for general anesthesia are (1) emergency Cesarean, when there is no time for a spinal or epidural block;  and (2) significant bleeding by the mother, leading to a low blood volume, which is an unsafe circumstance to administer a spinal or epidural block.  General anesthetics for Cesarean section carry an increased risk over spinal/epidural anesthesia, primarily because the mother is no longer able to breath on her own and maintain her own airway.

open heart surgery

II.  CARDIAC SURGERY/OPEN HEART SURGERY:

Open heart surgery requires specialized equipment.  Anesthesia for cardiac surgery is complex, and the following is a brief summary:  Prior to the surgery, the anesthesiologist inserts a catheter into the radial artery at the wrist, to monitor the patient’s blood pressure continuously, rather than relying on a blood pressure cuff.  This enables the anesthesiologist to fine-tune the blood pressure, never allowing it to be too high or too low for an extended period of time.  The anesthesiologist also inserts a catheter (a central venous catheter, or CVP catheter) into a large vein in the patient’s neck.  The anesthesiologist uses this catheter to monitor the pressure inside the heart, and also to administer infusions of potent medications into the central circulation to raise or lower the blood pressure, or to increase the heart’s pumping function.

After the patient is anesthetized, the anesthesiologist often inserts a Transesophageal Echocardiogram (TEE) probe into the patient’s mouth, down the esophagus, and into the stomach.  The TEE gives the anesthesiologist a two-dimensional image of the beating heart and the heart valves in real time, and enables him or her to adjust medications and fluid administration as needed to keep the patient stable.

For open heart surgery, once the chest is open, the cardiac surgeon inserts additional tubes into the veins and arteries around the heart, diverting the patient’s blood from the heart and lungs into a heart-lung machine located alongside the operating table.  During the time the patient is connected to the heart-lung machine, the patient’s heart can be stopped so that the surgeon can operate on a motionless heart.

When the surgeon has completed the cardiac repair, the heart is restarted, and the heart-lung machine is disconnected from the patient.

As the heart resumes beating, the anesthesiologist manages the drug therapy and intravenous fluid therapy to optimize the cardiac function.

III.  ANESTHESIA FOR NEUROSURGERY (BRAIN SURGERY):

Intracranial (brain) surgery requires exacting maintenance of blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory control.  Prior to the surgery, the anesthesiologist inserts a catheter into the radial artery at the wrist, to monitor the patient’s blood pressure continuously, rather than relying on a blood pressure cuff.  This enables the anesthesiologist to fine-tune the blood pressure, never allowing it to be too high or too low for an extended period of time.  The anesthesiologist also inserts a catheter (a central venous catheter, or CVP catheter) into a large vein in the patient’s neck.  The anesthesiologist uses this catheter to monitor the pressure inside the heart, and also to administer infusions of potent medications into the central circulation to raise or lower the blood pressure.

The anesthetic technique is designed to provide a motionless operating field for the surgeon.  After the anesthesiologist anesthetizes the patient, he or she inserts the endotracheal tube into the windpipe.  The patient is often hyperventilated, because hyperventilation causes the blood vessels in the brain to constrict, and makes the volume of the the brain decrease.  The relaxed brain affords the surgeon more room to dissect and expose brain tumors or aneurysms.

An important goal of the anesthetic is a quick wake-up at the conclusion of surgery, so that (1) normal neurological recovery of the patient can be confirmed, and (2) the patient is alert enough to  maintain their own airway and breathe on their own.  Most brain surgery patients spend at least one night in the intensive care unit (ICU) after surgery.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

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Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

HOW DOES THE ANESTHESIOLOGIST DECIDE WHAT DOSE OF ANESTHETIC TO GIVE A PATIENT?

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

This column is directed to my non-medical layperson readers. How does an anesthesiologist decide what dose of anesthetic to administer to a patient? You are a 100-pound, 70-year-old woman. Your son is a 200-pound, 35-year-old man. Do you both require the same doses of general anesthetic if you each need to have your gall bladder removed?

No, you do not.

Anesthesiologists use several criteria to choose the correct dose for your anesthetic.

  • Your weight.      All intravenous anesthetic drugs, such as hypnotics (propofol, sodium pentothal), narcotics (morphine, Demerol, fentanyl), anxiolytics (Versed, Ativan), or muscle paralyzing drugs (rocuronium, vecuronium, succinylcholine) are dosed on a milligram-per-kilogram basis. If you weigh half as much as your neighbor, if all other factors are equal, then you will receive approximately half as many milligrams of the injectable medication as she will.
  • Your age.        Abundant research has demonstrated the relationship between age and anesthetic effect. Youthful patients require more milligrams-per-kilogram of body weight. A teenager may require twice the dose of an 80-year-old patient.
  • How stimulating the surgery is, and how much pain there will be postoperatively.          A non-painful surgery, such as the repair of a small tendon in a finger, will not require large doses of narcotics or pain relievers post-operatively. A painful surgery, such as on open abdominal procedure to remove a pancreatic or liver tumor, will require more narcotics and increased doses of anesthetics. If postoperative pain is blocked by local anesthetic injection in the surgical site or by a nerve block, a patient will require less general anesthetic medications.
  • The duration of the surgery.      An 8-hour surgery will require a longer exposure to more anesthetic drugs than a 1-hour surgery.
  • Your preoperative exposure to central nervous system depressants.      All else being equal, a patient who drinks 12 beers every day will require more anesthesia than a teetotaler who never drinks. A patient who is addicted to chronic prescription painkillers will require more anesthesia than a non-addict.

Inhaled anesthetics, such as sevoflurane, desflurane, isoflurane, or nitrous oxide, are administered in standard concentrations, independent of all the above factors except the patient’s age.  Inhaled anesthetics are mixed into vapor by an anesthesia machine which is connected to the your breathing system during the surgery. The anesthesia machine will usually be set to deliver either sevoflurane 1-2 %, desflurane 3 – 6 %, or isoflurane 0.8 – 1.5 %. The required concentration of these potent inhaled anesthetic decreases with age. The dose for teenager is approximately twice the dose required for a 90-year-old patient.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

 

*
*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited

 

 

LETHAL INJECTION AND THE ANESTHESIOLOGIST

THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT Leave a comment
THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT
Physician anesthesiologist at Stanford at Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group
Richard Novak, MD is a Stanford physician board certified in anesthesiology and internal medicine.Dr. Novak is an Adjunct Clinical Professor in the Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Stanford University, the Medical Director at Waverley Surgery Center in Palo Alto, California, and a member of the Associated Anesthesiologists Medical Group in Palo Alto, California.
emailrjnov@yahoo.com
Latest posts by THE ANESTHESIA CONSULTANT (see all)

Lethal injection requires someone to administer anesthetic medications in high concentrations, without supporting breathing or cardiac function. This column discusses lethal injection and the anesthesiologist. In the 2011 movie The Lincoln Lawyer, Matthew McConaughey’s character, a criminal defense lawyer working in Los Angeles, taunts his client who is on trial for murder to tell the truth in order to “avoid the needle.”  The needle he is talking about is the specter of execution by lethal injection.

lethal injection and the anesthesiologist

Since 2006, there have been no death penalty executions by lethal injection in the state of California.  In February 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Jeremy D. Fogel blocked the execution of convicted murderer Michael Morales because of concerns that if the three-drug lethal injection combination was administered incorrectly, it could lead to suffering for the condemned, and potential cruel and unusual punishment.  The ruling arose from an injunction made by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which stated that an execution could only be carried out by a medical technician legally authorized to administer intravenous medications.  This led to a moratorium of capital punishment in California, as the state was unable to obtain the services of a licensed medical professional to carry out an execution.

The three intravenous drugs involved in lethal injection are (1) sodium thiopental, a barbiturate drug that induces sleep, (2) pancuronium, a drug that paralyzes all muscles, making movement and breathing impossible, and (3) potassium chloride, a drug that induces ventricular fibrillation of the heart, causing cardiac arrest.  The potential of cruel and unusual punishment can occur if the sodium thiopental does not reliably induce sleep, so that the individual to be executed is awake and aware when the paralyzing drug freezes all muscular activity.

How could sodium thiopental fail to induce sleep?  The lethal injection administered dose of sodium thiopental is always a massive dose, up to 3000 mg.  To compare, the usual dose of sodium thiopental administered by an anesthesiologist to begin a general anesthetic is 200 mg.  The 15-fold increase in the dose should insure lack of awareness, right?

Not necessarily.  What if the intravenous catheter or needle is incorrectly positioned, so that the drug does not enter the vein in a reliable fashion?  Is this a possibility?  It is.  If the catheter is not inserted by a trained medical professional, it’s possible that the catheter will be outside of the vein, and the intended medications will spill into the soft tissues of the arm.  The intended site of action of sodium thiopental is the brain.  To reach the brain, the drug must be correctly delivered into a vein.

Cases in which failure to establish or maintain intravenous access have led to executions lasting up to 90 minutes before the execution was complete.Thus, the role of a medical professional to insert the intravenous catheter and administer the lethal injection is critical.  The dilemma is that medical professionals are trained to save lives, not to execute people.  The Hippocratic Oath clearly states that physicians must “do no harm” to their patients.

The American Medical Association states, “A physician, as a member of a profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a legally authorized execution.”

The American Society of Anesthesiologists states, “Although lethal injection mimics certain technical aspects of the practice of anesthesia, capital punishment in any form is not the practice of medicine … The American Society of Anesthesiologists continues to agree with the position of the American Medical Association on physician involvement in capital punishment. The American Society of Anesthesiologists strongly discourages participation by anesthesiologists in executions.”

The American Nurses Association states, “The American Nurses Association is strongly opposed to nurse participation in capital punishment. Participation in executions is viewed as contrary to the fundamental goals and ethical traditions of the profession.”

Without a trained medical professional to administer the intravenous catheter and inject the drugs in a reliable fashion, the practice of lethal injection has stalled in the State of California.  The last prisoner executed by lethal injection in California was Clarence Ray Allen on January 17, 2006.

In 2010, a Riverside County judge scheduled the execution of Albert Greenwood Brown, after a California court lifted an injunction against capital punishment with the certification of new procedures.  The new procedures included the option of increasing the sodium thiopental dose to 5000 mg, and administering the drug alone without the pancuronium and potassium chloride.  (In this scenario, death would occur because the large dose of sodium thiopental would by itself induce both general anesthesia and the cessation of breathing, leading to death by lack of sufficient oxygen levels to the brain and heart.)  However, prior to the execution, the same Judge Jeremy D. Fogel halted the execution to permit time to determine whether the new injection procedures addressed defense arguments of cruel and unusual punishment.

An additional barrier to lethal injection arose in January 2011, as Hospira Corporation, the sole manufacturer of sodium thiopental, announced that they would stop making the anesthetic sodium thiopental, the key component in the drug cocktails used by 35 states for chemical executions.

Hospira had planned to shift production of thiopental from the U.S. to Italy, but Italian officials wanted assurances that the drug would not be used for lethal injections.  Hospira’s response was that while they “never condoned” the use of thiopental in executions, the company determined that it could not prevent corrections departments in the United States from obtaining the drug. “Based on this understanding, we cannot take the risk that we will be held liable by the Italian authorities if the product is diverted for use in capital punishment,” Hospira said in a statement.

The American Society of Anesthesiologists released a statement on January 21, 2011 condemning Hospira’s decision to cease manufacturing sodium thiopental. The American Society of Anesthesiologists “certainly does not condone the use of sodium thiopental for capital punishment, but we also do not condone using the issue as the basis to place undue burdens on the distribution of this critical drug to the United States. It is an unfortunate irony that many more lives will be lost or put in jeopardy as a result of not having the drug available for its legitimate medical use.”  According to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, thiopental is an important alternative for geriatric, neurologic, cardiovascular and obstetric patients “for whom the side effects of other medications could lead to serious complications.”

In current anesthetic practice in the U.S. and around the world, sodium thiopental is occasionally but rarely utilized in anesthetic or intensive care unit practice.  Propofol replaced sodium thiopental, as propofol is a shorter-acting drug with fewer side effects of post-operative sleepiness and nausea.

Propofol or other sedative drugs such as midazolam, Valium, etomidate, or methohexital could be used to replace sodium thiopental to carry out lethal injection, but the key issue of obtaining a trained medical professional to administer the drug still looms as a roadblock.

I recommend The Lincoln Lawyer as riveting entertainment, but when Matthew McConaughey urges the defendant to “avoid the needle” of lethal injection, you have to understand … it’s unlikely any anesthesiologist is ever going to assist in that execution.

 

The most popular posts for laypeople on The Anesthesia Consultant include:

How Long Will It Take To Wake Up From General Anesthesia?

Why Did Take Me So Long To Wake From General Anesthesia?

Will I Have a Breathing Tube During Anesthesia?

What Are the Common Anesthesia Medications?

How Safe is Anesthesia in the 21st Century?

Will I Be Nauseated After General Anesthesia?

What Are the Anesthesia Risks For Children?

 

The most popular posts for anesthesia professionals on The Anesthesia Consultant  include:

10 Trends for the Future of Anesthesia

Should You Cancel Anesthesia for a Potassium Level of 3.6?

12 Important Things to Know as You Near the End of Your Anesthesia Training

Should You Cancel Surgery For a Blood Pressure = 178/108?

Advice For Passing the Anesthesia Oral Board Exams

What Personal Characteristics are Necessary to Become a Successful Anesthesiologist?

 

 

*
*
*
*

Published in September 2017:  The second edition of THE DOCTOR AND MR. DYLAN, Dr. Novak’s debut novel, a medical-legal mystery which blends the science and practice of anesthesiology with unforgettable characters, a page-turning plot, and the legacy of Nobel Prize winner Bob Dylan.

KIRKUS REVIEW

In this debut thriller, tragedies strike an anesthesiologist as he tries to start a new life with his son.

Dr. Nico Antone, an anesthesiologist at Stanford University, is married to Alexandra, a high-powered real estate agent obsessed with money. Their son, Johnny, an 11th-grader with immense potential, struggles to get the grades he’ll need to attend an Ivy League college. After a screaming match with Alexandra, Nico moves himself and Johnny from Palo Alto, California, to his frozen childhood home of Hibbing, Minnesota. The move should help Johnny improve his grades and thus seem more attractive to universities, but Nico loves the freedom from his wife, too. Hibbing also happens to be the hometown of music icon Bob Dylan. Joining the hospital staff, Nico runs afoul of a grouchy nurse anesthetist calling himself Bobby Dylan, who plays Dylan songs twice a week in a bar called Heaven’s Door. As Nico and Johnny settle in, their lives turn around; they even start dating the gorgeous mother/daughter pair of Lena and Echo Johnson. However, when Johnny accidentally impregnates Echo, the lives of the Hibbing transplants start to implode. In true page-turner fashion, first-time novelist Novak gets started by killing soulless Alexandra, which accelerates the downfall of his underdog protagonist now accused of murder. Dialogue is pitch-perfect, and the insults hurled between Nico and his wife are as hilarious as they are hurtful: “Are you my husband, Nico? Or my dependent?” The author’s medical expertise proves central to the plot, and there are a few grisly moments, as when “dark blood percolated” from a patient’s nostrils “like coffee grounds.” Bob Dylan details add quirkiness to what might otherwise be a chilly revenge tale; we’re told, for instance, that Dylan taught “every singer with a less-than-perfect voice…how to sneer and twist off syllables.” Courtroom scenes toward the end crackle with energy, though one scene involving a snowmobile ties up a certain plot thread too neatly. By the end, Nico has rolled with a great many punches.

Nuanced characterization and crafty details help this debut soar.

Click on the image below to reach the Amazon link to The Doctor and Mr. Dylan:

41wlRoWITkL

Learn more about Rick Novak’s fiction writing at ricknovak.com by clicking on the picture below:  

DSC04882_edited