Safety-related scientific presentations are grouped in sessions at the meeting combined with the areas of practice management, history, and education. The resulting category constitutes the largest single type of scientific session at this meeting with 147 papers to be presented in nine sessions.
Several other Refresher Courses on topics from the various areas of practice will contain elements directly related to patient safety. Dr. Mark Warner (#113) will speak on "Cost-Containment in Anesthesia, Is It Worth the Effort?" On Sunday, October 20, Dr. Jonathan Benumof will cover "The ASA Difficult Airway Algorithm: New Thoughts/Considerations" and Dr. Michael Good will speak on "Capnography-Principles and Practice." Dr. David Chestnut will present a discussion of "Anesthesia for the High Risk Obstetric Patient" and Dr. James Eisenkraft will lecture on "Complications of Anesthesia Delivery Systems."
Monday afternoon, Dr. P. Schafer will have a poster entitled "The electronic esophageal detector device for detection of tracheal or esophageal intubation: does it work?" Other areas to be touched that afternoon involve latex allergy, eye complications, tissue damage from IV infiltration, avoiding hypothermia, pulmonary emboli during orthopedic surgery, and ulnar neuropathy. In another session at the same time, Dr. E. McCoy will present "Endobronchial intubation: an analysis of 4000 incident reports." Likewise, Dr. J. Rosenberg will discuss cardiac arrest and death in the OR among 69,083 anesthetics.
In the Tuesday afternoon sessions, the impact of fatigue on anesthesia performance will be addressed in two oral presentations: Dr. R. Geer will discuss the effects of an on-call cycle on psychomotor vigilance performance in both faculty and resident anesthesiologists; Dr. M. Weinger will present "Performance may be impaired in on-call residents doing nighttime cases." In a poster-discussion session, deaths and anesthetic difficulties in trauma patients will be reviewed by Dr. J. Duke. Further at the same time is a poster session featuring several presentations concerning the efficacy and safety of blood salvage, hemodilution, and transfusion therapy; two posters revisit the issue of carbon monoxide production during inhalation anesthetics. One poster considers factors associated with cognitive dysfunction after CABG surgery.
In a Wednesday morning session, Dr. K. Rose will give an oral presentation titled ÒAre anesthetic drug costs related to patient outcome?Ó The risk factors associated with preoperative fasting intervals will be discussed in a paper by Dr. T. Marks-Strauss. Finally, Dr. A. Kulier will present "Increase in degradation products of sevoflurane results from partially dried baralyme."
Even after last year's landmark emphasis on patient safety through the plenary lectures at the ASA Annual Meeting, this year's multiplicity of sessions promise to be piercingly relevant and singularly engaging. In addition, all those attending the ASA meeting are urged to visit and view the APSF booth in the exhibit hall, which will be open Sunday afternoon 12:00-5:00 and all day both Monday and Tuesday, 9:00-4:00.