What if half of your patients moved (or remembered or did something else bad) at incision?

摘要

NUMBERS are part of medical educationeveryone learns normal values for blood pressure, laboratory values, and so on; then, during training, one acquires numbers specific for one's specialty. One category of numbersminimum alveolar concentration (MAC) permeates the anesthesia community. For each inhaled anesthetic, that number is branded onto one's brain as a guide to dosing. However, there is a problem with MAC: If patients were dosed with 1 MAC, by definition, 50% of patients would move on incision. Surgeons would be unhappy, patients might be harmed, and anesthesiologists' professional standing would be compromised. Realistically, one of two things happens when inhaled anesthetics are given: Either larger doses are given routinely or movement is prevented by administration of other drugs.