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AN ANESTHESIOLOGIST CAN SAVE YOUR LIFE WITH ONE FINGER

The Anesthesia Consultant

An anesthesiologist can save your life by treating airway obstruction with as little as one finger, thereby maintaining safe oxygen flow in and out of your lungs. Patients wonder what their anesthesiologist is doing while they are sleeping. Anesthesiologists supply oxygen via a mask or via a nasal cannula.

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WAS JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA’S DEATH FROM OBSTRUCTIVE SLEEP APNEA?

The Anesthesia Consultant

As an experienced anesthesiologist, I’ve personally watched over 25,000 patients sleep during my career. Because of the decrease in ventilation, the oxygen saturation level will drop. As anesthesiologists, we administer oxygen via nasal cannula or via a mask, and the oxygen saturation will increase to a safe level again.

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DO DOCTORS EVER RIDE IN AMBULANCES?

The Anesthesia Consultant

If the patient is unstable, a physician, usually an anesthesiologist, will need to accompany the patient and the EMTs to the hospital emergency room. She was then transferred to the hospital for overnight observation of her airway, pulmonary function, and oxygenation. Why did an anesthesiologist travel with each patient?

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EXTUBATION IS RISKY BUSINESS. WHY THE CONCLUSION OF GENERAL ANESTHESIA CAN BE A CRITICAL EVENT

The Anesthesia Consultant

At the onset of general anesthesia anesthesiologists place an ET tube through the mouth, past the larynx (voice box), and into the trachea (windpipe). The ET tube is a conduit to safely transfer oxygen and anesthesia gases into and out of the lungs. Anesthesiologists are vigilant during extubation. Extubation is risky business.

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FIVE MINUTES. TO AVOID ANOXIC BRAIN INJURY

The Anesthesia Consultant

These three words make any anesthesiologist cringe. In layman’s terms, anoxic brain injury, or anoxic encephalopathy, means “the brain is deprived of oxygen.” In an anesthetic disaster the brain can be deprived of oxygen. Without oxygen, brain cells die, and once they die they do not regenerate. Anoxic brain injury.

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ROBOT ANESTHESIA II

The Anesthesia Consultant

Are anesthesiologists on the verge of being replaced by a new 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.” Why is this robotic device only a small step toward replacing anesthesiologists?

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ROBOTIC ANESTHESIA 

The Anesthesia Consultant

Will we live to see anesthesiologists replaced by technology? In addition to the BIS monitor, the iControl-RP monitored the vital signs of blood oxygen level, heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure to determine how much anesthesia to deliver. The device had been used on 250 patients at that time.