What patients should know about anesthesia

Let's get into this important topic here. So when a patient arrives at a trauma center, every second counts, as you all know. Terica Harris, she's a CRNA with Grady Memorial Hospital here in Atlanta. She is one of the ones that responds and is on the front lines of care. So she's joining us this morning to talk about why anesthesiology is critically important and the role that CRNAs play in this. Thanks so much for joining us, Terica. Well, thank you for having me. So first, let's start with the basics here. What is a CRNA and what role do you all play in a patient's care? So CRNA stands for Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist or Certified Registered Nurse Anesthesiologist. Some people may simply refer to us just as CRNAs. Some people may refer to us as nurse anesthetists. But our role is basically from beginning to end, we take care of the patient when they're under anesthesia when they are going to surgery. So we pre-op the patient, clear them for anesthesia, ask them questions to make sure they're appropriate for the type of anesthetic they're receiving, put them under or put them to sleep, as a lot of people will say. And then we also make sure that we wake them up safely. I like to tell my patients the important part really is waking you up. I was like, anybody can put you to sleep, but I get paid to wake you up because that's the thing that patients are usually most nervous about. Absolutely. I know that I, you know, thankfully haven't had to undergo surgery, but when I was a kid, I remember having to do that and just being nervous about waking up. So I know that is a fear for a lot of patients, no matter how young you are or how old you are. But let's go through the first steps here. When a trauma patient arrives at Grady, what does your role look like in those first critical moments? So, I actually work at a few different level one trauma hospitals around the country. So, I'm not just solely and specifically at Grady. But when you look at trauma anesthesia, it's pretty much the same around the country, no matter where I am. When the patient arrives, if we have time, if the patient is able to communicate, then we do ask them maybe like three quick questions like, do you have any allergies, right? Because I don't want to give you anything that you're going to be allergic to. So if they're with it, if they're able to communicate, do you have any allergies, that sort of stuff. And then at that point, our main priority is stabilizing the patient. So getting the patient intubated, getting them moved over to the OR table, getting them hooked up to all of our monitors, checking labs to see like how the patient is doing, getting all of their vital signs to see, is this patient stable? Is this patient, not stable. And then also a lot of communication with the surgeon. What does the surgeon need? What type of anesthesia do they need? What do they plan on doing? So usually it's a lot of people in the room and everyone's kind of like working together as a team because of course, you know, minutes are critical. Time is critical. Absolutely. And talk about how providing anesthesia in an emergency situation is different from anesthesia for a planned procedure. time to kind of like build some rapport with the patient right i meet the patient in pre-op i have a chance to introduce myself to tell them what i plan on doing what to expect ask them a few questions again i have time to build that rapport because a lot of times when you meet patients in pre-op for a planned procedure they're nervous they're anxious um they're nervous about waking up they're nervous and anxious about what's going to go on so i have the opportunity then to just build that rapport and talk to them, that sort of stuff. But when it's a trauma, obviously you don't have time on your side. I'm not sitting there trying to build rapport with you when my main priority at this point is saving your life and keeping you alive. So plan procedure, lots of time to talk to the patient up front, get some of their medical history, learn about the patient, their allergies, have they been under anesthesia before? What kind of medicines do they take? What type of comorbidities do they have? Do you have high blood pressure? Do you have diabetes that I should be watching out for while we're in surgery? But if it's a trauma patient, then I don't have time to do that. If it's a trauma patient, then I just have to roll with the flow and assume the worst. I don't know if this patient is diabetic. I don't know if this patient is hypertensive. I don't know what type of comorbidities they have. And so you just kind of have to treat them as if worst case scenario, right? But whether it's a planned procedure or it's a trauma, it's an emergency, they're still going to be getting the level of care from me that I provide to all my patients. Tara, thanks so much for sharing. One more question for you before we let you go. We know that you make some big decisions when it comes to caring for a trauma patient. What else do you want patients and families to understand about the work that you do and the role that CRNAs play when it comes to caring for patients in general. We know that yesterday was World Anesthesia Day. So it's so important for us to continue honoring you all and the hard work that you all do. Well, as I kind of talked about before, a lot of times patients are nervous. They're anxious when they're coming to surgery, especially if it's something planned that they've had time to research, Google, YouTube, and see all the things on the internet about. And so if they are doing that, if they are doing their research, then I would highly encourage them to look at a new resource that the AANA has recently developed called anesthesiaanswers.org. And so this resource is available to patients basically to give them an idea and answer questions that they may have about what to expect while they're under anesthesia, what to expect before they go under, what to expect after they wake up, and kind of help to assuage some of those fears and nervousness that patients have when they're coming to the hospital to get surgery or anesthesia. All right, Tara, sounds good. Thanks so much for joining us to talk about this. We appreciate you taking time from your busy schedule to join us today. Thank you again for having me.