General Anaesthesia

Do you know the difference between general and local anaesthetic?? General is when you go to sleep and local is just freezing like at that Dentist.

Today I worked in our Old interventional scanner where we do procedure's like biopsy, abdominal drains ( that are very stinky and look like pea soup) insert chest tube's and sometime fancy things like today. Since I've been in CT i miss out on going to the OR so when we get to work closely with an Anesthesiologist...( the Dr who puts you to sleep) its a nice change. I think they have the coolest job yet. It looks so easy once they get the patient to sleep, they usually sit with there feet up, play good music, and read the paper. Its really not so simple, they have a HUGE responsibility when it comes to the patient with drugs like propofol, that's the stuff Micheal Jackson died from and they also have to insert a breathing tube, and gas the patients...that's why everyone just stays sleeping during every procedure!!

Here is a picture of the Machine that keeps you asleep, its got ALOT of bells and whistles and connects to the special Gas and Ventilator. I find it fascinating.




Here is the all the equipment used to care for the patient and keep them asleep, huge drug cart, the anaesthesia machine, and then the monitor, it was just like being in the operating room again.




Today the procedure that we preformed was called a Sacral Kyphoplasty! In short terms, our Radiologist put cement into the sacrum. Pretty cool when you think about it. They can also do that in the spine, when you break a vertebral body, and it helps to maintain or stabilize the fracture. Here is a picture with no names or any faces involved of the procedure, the Dr'.s were mixing the cement.



I even got to use my iPhone because the cement dries in 10 minutes so, the Radiologist had to get it all in the joint in less then 8 minutes to let in settle, so we used the phone as stop watch.


On top of all the excitement, that will be the last time we will ever perform something like this on that scanner. Tomorrow is our last day with this old Dinosaur, we are getting a Brand New Top of the Line 64 slice scanner. They start tearing the room down at 3pm Friday!

Good bye Old GE 4 slice......off you go to a 3rd world country to help out patients that need you!! Its been a slice..heheheh no pun intended!!


Happy Friday tomorrow everyone!