Additional ASA Interactions |
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While many would say, "How compassionate of the ASA to advise its members to take awareness seriously, those of us who have "been there/done that" ask why the reality of awareness needs to be "advised" about!!
"compassion"
≠
prevention
July 20, 2007
The American Society of Anesthesiologists has advised members to respect patient complaints of "intraoperative awareness" - being awake during surgery - after major newspapers documented the problem. Awareness occurs in one or two of every 1,000 surgeries under general anesthesia, says the ASA.
-The Washington Post
Are You Asleep?
The Washington Post
April 18, 2006
The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) has advised members to respect patient complaints of "intraoperative awareness" -- being awake during surgery -- after major newspapers documented the problem. Awareness occurs in one or two of every 1,000 surgeries under general anesthesia, says the ASA. It recommends doctors check patients more carefully, before, during and after an operation, and treat complaints with compassion. But it stopped short of urging doctors to use brain-wave monitors, which have been found to cut the risk of unintended awakening by 80 percent.
DID YOU KNOW? 
New ASA "advisory" standards no longer require anesthesiologists to ask if a patient has any memory of their surgery - a giant step backward from the suggestions in the JCAHO Sentinel Event Alert Issue 32 of October 2004. BUT, if a traumatized awareness victim has the wherewithal and the vocabulary (the public, press, and media call it "anesthesia awareness" but the ASA has decided to use the term "unintended intraoperative awareness") to relate his/her awareness to the anesthesiologist or another health care provider, then "a report should be filed." Sounds great, doesn't it?? BUT, when you really look at the "practice advisory," (note the title "advisory" -- not rule or standard of care), there is no central place to file these "reports," no standardized set of information to be provided, no body to tabulate the information presented, no group in charge of analyzing the data, etc.
NO MONITOR,
NO HONOR!
NEW ACRONYM: BAM = brain activity monitoring
The Anesthesia Awareness Campaign demands the ASA's
awareness of awareness!