Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · May 2012
A survey of anesthesiologists' views of operating room recycling.
Operating rooms contribute significantly to the increasing volumes and costs of hospital waste. Little is known, however, about doctors' views of hospital waste recycling despite their potential influence in improving recycling programs. We surveyed the waste recycling views held by anesthesiologists in Australia, New Zealand, and England in regional or metropolitan and public or private practice. We asked the following: (1) What proportion of anesthesiologists consider recycling operating room waste to be important? (2) What do respondents consider to be identifiable barriers preventing operating room recycling? ⋯ Most responding anesthesiologists supported greater operating room waste recycling but thought that there were identifiable barriers. Anesthesiologists could take a leadership role and work with other hospital employees to improve operating room recycling. We suggest studies of the effect of improving operating room recycling facilities, education, and staff attitudes.
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Drug waste has been implicated as a significant contributor to environmental contamination and unnecessary health care costs. ⋯ Propofol does not degrade in nature, accumulates in body fat, and is toxic to aquatic life. We reduced wastage by removing 50 and 100 mL vials of propofol from the pharmacy, retaining only the smallest size (20 mL).
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Members of the Society for Pediatric Anesthesia (SPA) perceive the 47% rain rate has burdened its national meetings more than would be expected. We compared weather conditions on the first day of each national SPA meeting since 1987 with historical data using the day, month, and location of each meeting. Using a generalized estimating equations model, the odds ratio of rain comparing meeting and nonmeeting days was 2.63 (P value 0.006, 95% confidence interval 1.32-5.22). These results confirm a significantly higher frequency of rain at national SPA meetings than would be anticipated.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · May 2012
The emergence level of the musculocutaneous nerve from the brachial plexus: implications for infraclavicular nerve blocks.
In this cadaveric study we assessed the level of the emergence of the musculocutanous nerve (MCN) relative to needle insertion site during infraclavicular block. ⋯ This anatomical study suggests that MCN may be one of the factors explaining MCN block failure for the single-injection technique of infraclavicular block using lateral needle trajectory.