Tens of millions of Chicago Cubs fans the world over woke up on Sunday morning and scanned their respective horizons, looking to see if the sun would rise. When it did, they realized they truly had witnessed a historic event – the Cubs’ first World Series appearance in 70 years.
Was this epic event just an anomaly, or were more once-in-a-lifetime occurrences on the way? Yesterday, the Daily News inquired of meeting attendees:
“The Cubs have just made it to the World Series. What similarly epic, historic event do you see happening to the specialty of anesthesia now that our world has changed?”
“Individually tailored medicine. With our great understanding of the human genome, I think that in the future we will get to the stage where we will be looking at individual responses to particular drugs. We will be able to make our drug cocktail to meet the needs of the individual patient. It will make things safer and more accurate.”
Andrew Jarvie, M.D.
Dalhousie University Department of Anesthesia
Halifax, Canada
“The single biggest transition coming to anesthesia probably will be the transition to video laryngoscopy as our primary mode of handling airways. Where I practice, which is the Portland VA, we’ve already decided that we are going to ask for the funding to put a GlideScope in every operating room so it is always there rather than getting it out specifically when we are concerned about the airway.”
Kenneth Abbey, M.D., J.D.
Portland VA
Lake Oswego, Oregon
“I think there will be more use of social media and there will be easier platforms for anesthesiologists to talk with each other and ask each other questions about their own experiences, or if they have any issues or patient problems — they can reach out to their anesthesiologist friends. The ability to have a colleague give you a hand and getting people’s input is a natural platform for cross-pollination of ideas.”
Anil Bajaj, M.D.
Oak Brook, Illinois
“I think that there is so much going on with new legislation and the new changes in health care that it will have quite an effect on our practice. I don’t think anyone knows which way it is going yet, so it is hard to predict what is going to happen, but something will change. There are so many inefficiencies, and I think in an effort to streamline things, there will have to be changes.”
Yaw Donkoh, M.D.
Chicago
