Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Mar 2012
ReviewThe disclosure of unanticipated outcomes of care and medical errors: what does this mean for anesthesiologists?
The disclosure of unanticipated outcomes to patients, including medical errors, has received considerable attention of late. The discipline of anesthesiology is a leader in patient safety, and as the doctrine of full disclosure gains momentum, anesthesiologists must become acquainted with these philosophies and practices. Effective disclosure can improve doctor-patient relations, facilitate better understanding of systems, and potentially decrease medical malpractice costs. ⋯ Anesthesiologists should be aware of the emerging best practices surrounding disclosure, as well as the training opportunities and disclosure support resources that are increasingly available. Innovative models should be developed that promote collaboration between all perioperative team members in the disclosure process. There are important opportunities for anesthesiologists to play a leading role in defining specialty-specific disclosure practices and to more effectively meet patients' needs for disclosure after unanticipated outcomes and medical errors.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Mar 2012
ReviewBrain monitoring with electroencephalography and the electroencephalogram-derived bispectral index during cardiac surgery.
Cardiac surgery presents particular challenges for the anesthesiologist. In addition to standard and advanced monitors typically used during cardiac surgery, anesthesiologists may consider monitoring the brain with raw or processed electroencephalography (EEG). There is strong evidence that a protocol incorporating the processed EEG bispectral index (BIS) decreases the incidence intraoperative awareness in comparison with standard practice. ⋯ There has been a resurgence of interest in the anesthesia literature in limited montage EEG monitoring, including nonproprietary processed indices. This has been accompanied by research showing that with structured training, anesthesiologists can glean useful information from the raw EEG trace. In this review, we discuss both the hypothesized benefits and limitations of BIS and frontal channel EEG monitoring in the cardiac surgical population.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Mar 2012
ReviewThe Bainbridge and the "reverse" Bainbridge reflexes: history, physiology, and clinical relevance.
Francis A. Bainbridge demonstrated in 1915 that an infusion of saline or blood into the jugular vein of the anesthetized dog produced tachycardia. His findings after transection of the cardiac autonomic nerve supply and injection of the cholinergic blocking drug atropine demonstrated that the tachycardia was reflex in origin, with the vagus nerves constituting the afferent limb and a withdrawal of vagal tone the primary efferent limb. ⋯ The Bainbridge reflex is invoked throughout the anesthesia literature to describe the effect of changes in venous return on heart rate in patients in the surgical and critical care settings, but a critical analysis of the experimental and clinical evidence is lacking. Our main objectives in this review are to summarize the history of the Bainbridge reflex, to describe its anatomy and physiology, and to discuss the evidence for and against it having an influence on heart rate changes observed clinically. The interaction of the Bainbridge reflex with the arterial baroreceptor and Bezold-Jarisch reflexes is discussed.