When you start saying “Back when I was in training…”, you are officially old. Well, back when I was in training, I didn’t think regional anesthesia was a career path. We weren’t using ultrasound yet, and catheters were still experimental. Regional anesthesia was just part of anesthesiology, and there was a fairly limited set of blocks to offer patients. Besides spinals and epidurals, I was fortunate to learn how to do more peripheral techniques than most residents in my cohort: the femoral nerve block; proximal and distal sciatic nerve block; brachial plexus blocks (interscalene, infraclavicul ..read more

It is hard to believe, but this is my last report as CSA President! We recently held our CSA annual meeting in San Diego which was organized by annual meeting Chair Dr. Christina Menor. This meeting had a theme of “CSA Connect” and was designed to promote more interactive discussion within committees, opportunities to network and catch up with friends and colleagues, meet new people, and enjoy some time to relax.  I think this meeting achieved all of these objectives!  I have listed a few of my personal highlights and takeaways below. Annual meeting Vice-Chair Dr. Engy Said put toget ..read more

2023 is the 75th anniversary of the California Society of Anesthesiologists (CSA)! In addition to celebratory events, CSA is also introducing the 1st annual CSA President’s Impact Awards. This is an important new initiative developed by the CSA Membership Committee and other CSA leaders, and I am thrilled to provide a little more detail about these awards, which be presented at the CSA annual meeting in San Diego this April.  It will come as no surprise that I love being an anesthesiologist – a blog post of mine about this from a few years ago is probably the ..read more

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Despite previously published guidelines and practice recommendations, there remains unwarranted variation in the quality of pain management provided to patients having surgery. Unwarranted variations in healthcare are inconsistencies in clinical practice that have no basis in science or patient preference. In 2019, the U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Pain Management Best Practices Inter-Agency Task Force published its report, which called on medical societies to work together to develop evidence-based guidelines to improve the quality of pain care delivery. The Task Fo ..read more

“You will be asleep for your surgery,” anesthesiologists often reassure their patients. Just before the start of anesthesia, a patient may hear the operating room nurse saying, “Think of a nice dream as you go off to sleep.” While these statements are intended to soothe patients during a stressful time, they gloss over this critical fact: Anesthesia is not like normal sleep at all.  That’s why you need medical doctors – anesthesiologists – to take care of you under anesthesia, and why you don’t need us when you’re sleeping comfortably in your own bed. Differences between natural slee ..read more

I have written previously about what I love about being an anesthesiologist and why I still love being an anesthesiologist after all these years. Recent articles have drawn attention to the pervasive problem of burnout among anesthesiologists, and the numbers are alarming. The overall prevalence within anesthesiology is approximately 60%, and this rate varies by subspecialty with pain physicians being at highest risk. Our writing group has published two letters in the Journal of Clinical Anesthesia that offer additional perspectives and highlight important work on this subject: “A field on fir ..read more

I am an academic physician who specializes in anesthesiology, a clinical researcher, and an educator. So why am I on Twitter? Global Interaction:  Through Twitter I interact with people from around the world with similar interests. Participating in international Twitter chats like #healthxph or #hcldr can foster innovative ideas that may lead to research questions, collaborations, or other opportunities. Through Twitter, I was invited by Dr. Mary Brindle, pediatric surgeon and Director of the Safe Surgery Safe Systems Program at Ariadne Labs, to participate in an inter ..read more

I had the privilege of co-chairing the 2021 Pain Summit hosted by American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). In the months preceding the summit, ASA physician volunteers and staff as well as representatives from 14 other surgical specialty and healthcare organizations worked towards achieving consensus on a common set of principles to guide physicians and other clinicians who manage acute perioperative pain. These 7 proposed principles are: Conduct a preoperative evaluation including assessment of medical and psychological conditions, concomitant medications, history of chronic pain, substa ..read more