Andhra Pradesh - Kurnool   

‘Roles changing for anaesthetists’

KURNOOL: Naheed Azar, Assistant Professor of Anaesthesiology at Madras Medical College, has called upon anaesthesiologists to prepare for a new role outside operation theatres.

Delivering a talk on ‘Changing fasting guidelines in emergency obstetric anaesthesia’ in connection with the World Anaesthesia Day here on Thursday, he said anaesthesiologists had more work to do outside the theatres during post-operative care.

Dr. Azar said there was not much change in the basic principles of anaesthesia in the last 100 years even though the methods had changed since the times of W.T.G. Morton, who first administered anaesthesia to a patient in 1846. The meeting paid tributes to Morton who first carried out the painless surgery in the world.

He said Joseph Baron Lister laid down the principle in 1883 that patients should be stopped from receiving solids eight hours before the surgery but liquids could go on till two hours before the surgery. The guideline was a standard dictum even today. In fact, liquids should go into the body to awaken the sleeping metabolism at the time of surgery.

Dr. Azar cautioned that the job of anaesthesiologists was not just inducing the effect but the patients demanded safe and comfortable anaesthesia. A day would come when anaesthesiologists would also become accountable for adverse condition of the patients.

On the role of anaesthetists in treating obstetric patients, Dr. Azar said the cases were totally under the control of obstetrics and midwives and the anaesthetists had little scope for carrying out research activity in the area. He emphasised that the protocol laid for western patients could not be blindly applied to Indian patients.

P. Madhusudan Rao, head of ISA city branch, secretary A. Venkateswara Reddy, principal Mallikarjun, deputy superintendent Ramnath and others were present.

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