The Anesthesia Record

When I was a kid, my mom used to always complain that I left the lights on whenever I walked out of a room.  "I can tell exactly where you've been!", she'd say.  Of course, I gave her the ol' "I've seen the error of my ways" speech (which, I gotta tell you, I near perfected in high school) but the whole time I'd be thinking about how, when I had kids, I wouldn't mind one bit if they left the lights on.  Or, for that matter, if they left the house with their bed unmade, didn't pitch in with chores, or stayed out past curfew.  Nope, not me!  I wouldn't mind one bit!

You see where I'm going with this, right?

Of course I'm going to make my kids do chores.  And, well let's face it, those lights aren't going to turn themselves off!  Point being, we all become our elders.  Sooner or later, it happens.  And "later" is right on the horizon...

You see, I often hear our instructors discuss techniques, tools, or drugs that were used in the past but, for some reason or another, have fallen out of favor with current anesthesia practitioners.  Halothane, for example, is not an agent you'd expect to find in an operating room these days (unless you were providing anesthesia on a medical missions trip), though it was used quite extensively in the relatively recent past.  As a result, this drug is still referenced here and there during lectures.

Well, I predict that our current gas machines will be the "halothane-of-the-future".  Don't get me wrong, our machines are great.  They provide us with an abundance of information and are pretty amazing, if you ask me.  However, our class had the opportunity to see an updated model - which is currently being utilized in a few of Baptist's ORs - and it was great!  The unit is slightly smaller and performs the majority of the machine check-out independently.  I was sold.  The only drawback?  Knowing that, in 10 years time, SRNAs are going to wonder why I keep referencing the old machines and discussing all the extra effort it took to run them.

And, of course, I'll add that I had to walk to class in the snow.  Uphill both ways.