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Anaesthesiology is the field of Medicine which deals with pain treatment and
integral care of the surgical patient before, during and after surgery.
Apart from
the above-mentioned fields of action, our speciality currently includes
others, namely pain treatment, critical medical profiles and extrahospital
or intrahospital emergencies.
• Our duties
inside the operating theatre go beyond anaesthetizing patients, mainly
consisting of protecting and regulating their vital signs, in order for the
surgical intervention to cause them the least possible alterations.
In fact it is
us, the surgeons, who are in charge of diagnosing and tackling any problem
or medical incident which may occur while practising the operation or during
the postoperative period immediately after.
• The main
types of anaesthetics are:
- General
anaesthetics: The patient remains unconscious.
- Regional
anaesthetics: The region of the body which is going to be operated on is
anaesthetized, hence its name. To do so, the anaesthetic is injected into
the region close to the nerves which capture the sensitivity of that region.
- Local
anaesthetics: Anaesthetics is directly administered into the area on
which the surgeon is going to operate.
•
Anaesthetics always entails a risk for the patient, which will vary mainly
according to the type of intervention which the patient is to undergo and
their physical health prior to the operation.
Anyhow,
serious accidents are exceptional. Complications related to anaesthetics
have significantly decreased in the past 25 years. Likewise the number of
deaths attributed to anaesthetics has fallen dramatically. Today it is
estimated that the death risk due to anaesthetics is 1 out of 200,000 cases. |