A&A practice
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Case Reports
Cardiac Arrest due to Failed Pacemaker Capture After Peripheral Nerve Blockade With Levobupivacaine: A Case Report.
We describe a patient with a pacemaker who developed cardiac arrest shortly after ultrasound-guided rectus sheath block for postoperative analgesia. The cause of cardiac arrest was capture failure due to an increased pacing threshold, and the patient was promptly treated by increasing the pacing amplitude. Local anesthetics used for rectus sheath block might have affected the pacing threshold and caused pacing capture failure, since local anesthetics can block cardiac sodium channels. Anesthesiologists should recognize the risk of pacemaker capture failure when a large amount of local anesthetic is given to patients with a cardiac pacemaker.
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It is challenging to include medical students in the anesthetic decision-making process during their introductory clinical rotation in anesthesiology. Furthermore, the rotation is often too brief to even expose students to the variety inherent in anesthesia practice. We created a web-based, branched-chain learning module (BCLM) for medical students with alternate narratives and patient outcomes based on their anesthetic choices. In semistructured group interviews, students described how the BCLM met its educational objectives and gave constructive feedback on several ways to improve their experience with it, guiding the future use of BCLMs in medical education.
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We report the management of a parturient with undiagnosed hypokalemic periodic paralysis (HOKPP) who underwent epidural analgesia for labor, complicated by an unintentional dural puncture, and the eventual use of epidural anesthesia for cesarean delivery. Following discharge, she represented with lower extremity paresis. After being evaluated for a compressive neuraxial lesion, she made a full recovery following potassium repletion. The obstetric anesthetic implications for patients with HOKPP and how this disorder impacts the evaluation of acute motor weakness in the immediate postpartum period in a patient who recently received a neuraxial procedure are discussed.