Coronavirus and Anesthesia | Coronavirus Management In The Operating Room and ICU| What is Anesthesia?
Because anesthesiologists are the critical care doctors of the operating room, during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, many of us transitioned to managing COVID-19 patients in the ICU while at the same time managing emergency surgeries for the same patients.
So in this video, I am going to go over what anesthesia is and what do anesthesiologists really do and our role in the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
During coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, most elective surgeries were canceled and anesthesiologists transitioned from working in the OR to the ICUs and emergency rooms. Remember, anesthesiologists are also critical care physicians in the operating room, and some, in fact, works predominantly in the ICU over the OR.
In some hospitals, anesthesiologists formed airway teams where they were the only providers responsible for intubating COVID-19 patients. Intubation is also a very high-risk procedure in COVID-19 because we are extremely close to someone’s mouth and airway.
There were still emergency surgeries taking place and sometimes involving COVID-19 patients. The challenges were not only to medically manage COVID-19 patients but also to maintain strict infection control.
The other challenges included ventilating patients with severe ARDS from COVID-19 infections to maintaining their blood pressure and heart rate despite being on life-supporting medications like epinephrine and Levophed.
To become an anesthesiologist in the United States, one has to complete pre-medical courses in undergrad, which includes all your basic sciences and math. During your senior year of college, you take the MCAT exam and apply to medical school. Some will take a few years off to do research and go to graduate school like I did when I got my master’s in public health. Medical school in the United States is a 4-year program broken down into 2 years of basic sciences and 2 years of clinical rotations. There are 4 exams you take to become eligible for a medical license.
After medical school, we enter a 4-year anesthesiology residency program. The first year of residency is also called “the intern year” and we rotate through internal medicine, surgery, ICU, and the emergency room. The next 3 years are our clinical anesthesia training and we spend many months rotating through the operating room and ICU with intense training in cardiology, pulmonary, pediatrics, pain management, and OB.
After residency, we take 2 exams to become board certified by the American Board of Anesthesiology- a written exam and an oral exam.
– Dr. Yo
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