Editor's Note All newly certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs) in the US will be required to hold a doctoral degree, marking a significant shift in training standards for the profession, according to a May 3 post by James Allen, MD, on his page, “Hospital Medical Director,” also covered by Becker's…
Editor's Note Greater familiarity between surgeons and anesthesiologists was associated with reduced major morbidity in certain high-risk procedures, according to a Canadian retrospective cohort study published in JAMA Surgery. As detailed in a May 28 report from MedPage Today, the population-based analysis included more than 711,000 index procedures, finding an…
Editor's Note The first study to evaluate percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI) in Medicare beneficiaries treated at ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) found similar short-term safety outcomes as hospital outpatient departments (HOPDs). As detailed in an announcement from The Society for Cardiovascular Angiography & Interventions (SCAI), the research was presented on May…
Editor's Note EEG-guided anesthesia reduces drug use and speeds recovery in children, according to an April 22 report in Neuroscience News. The article focuses on a clinical trial, conducted in Japan and published April 21 in JAMA Pediatrics, comparing standard anesthesia dosing with EEG-guided dosing in more than 170 surgical…
Editor's Note Helping patients taper opioids preoperatively before deploying multimodal care strategies can help prevent instances of patients already with prescriptions going home with even higher doses. That’s the main takeaway from an April 22 MedCentral interview with Marie N. Hanna, MD, division chief for regional anesthesia and acute pain…
Editor's Note Ambulatory surgery center (ASC) leaders elevate safety by treating patient selection as a clinical gatekeeper, then prop that rigor with data-driven workflows, advanced monitoring, and targeted robotics to bring complex spine cases safely into the outpatient space. An interview with Glenn Snyders Jr, MD, medical director and head…
Editor's Note Taking GLP-1 receptor agonists before anesthesia increases the risk of residual gastric contents, but evidence is lacking for a corresponding increase in perioperative pulmonary aspiration risk, according research published April 15 in the journal Anaesthesia. The systematic review and meta-analysis analyzed 28 observational studies involving over 466,000 patients…
Editor's Note A recent Duke University analysis challenges the long‑held assumption that ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) inherently deliver superior results for outpatient joint replacement, Orthopedics This Week March 18 reports. In the February 2025 Journal of Arthroplasty, researchers report that same‑day discharge total knee arthroplasty (TKA) performed in a tertiary‑care hospital…
Editor's Note Cannabis users may require higher doses of anesthetics during sedation and experience worse physical and psychological symptoms during cancer treatment, according to an April 7 announcement from the University of Oklahoma (OU). Publishing in the journal Gastrointestinal Endoscopy, a multidisciplinary team of university researchers found that cannabis users…
Editor's Note A large-scale study of over 50,000 ambulatory surgery center (ASC) procedures shows a strikingly low rate of 24-hour unplanned postoperative hospital admissions, offering a benchmark that other ASCs can strive to match, General Surgery News March 26 reports. Over a 7-year period from 2016 to 2022, researchers at…