Anesthesia and analgesia
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Regional anesthesia employing the spinal, epidural, or caudal approach was used to anesthetize 200 children, varying in age from 17 days to 15 years. Lidocaine in concentrations varying according to age was used. ⋯ No major anesthetic complications or deaths were attributable to the anesthetic technic. The caudal approach proved easiest.
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Exposure of all medical students to selected anesthesiology-related subjects provides better acquaintance with the procedures and practices of the specialty. Airway management, methods of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, and patient monitoring are among the anesthesiologist's technics that have widespread applicability to all areas of medicine. ⋯ The scope of the specialty, including preoperative and postoperative patient evaluation; the values and shortcomings of modern anesthetic agents, the role of anesthesia in postsurgical morbidity; and the anesthesiologist as a consultant, can be emphasized. Even a brief exposure to the specialty should enable the student to understand the place of the anesthesiologist and anesthetic agents in patient management.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · May 1975
Minimizing emergence phenomena: subdissociative dosage of ketamine in balanced surgical anesthesia.
Three hundred twelve patients, ranging in age from 14 to 89 years and undergoing various major and minor surgical procedures, were anesthetized by oxygen, nitrous oxide, and ketamine in sequence. Anesthesia was induced with thiopental (5.8 mg./kg.). The first 212 patients received an initial dose of ketamine of 1.6 mg./kg. lean body mass; 100 other patients, an initial (subdissociative) dose of ketamine of 0.4 mg./kg. body weight. ⋯ Postoperative subjective reactions were limited to slight confusion on emergence, with some disorientation to time, and occurred in 10 patients (5 percent) in the first group and 4 (4 percent) in the latter group. No psychotomimetic reactions were noted in either group. The latter group unanimously found the anesthetic technic acceptable for future use.