What is anesthesiology?

The term Anaesthesia in Greek means ‘without sensation’. Anesthesiology, also regarded as anaesthetics, is the specialization of medicine concerned with the perioperative care of patients at all stages of the surgery- before, during and after. The speciality encompasses many sub specialties like anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, and pain medicine.

What does an anaesthesiologist do?

The anaesthesiologists evaluate the patient’s condition and monitor and supervise the patient’s care before, during and after the surgery is complete. They deliver different amounts of anaesthesia at different times as required, to the patient. They lead the Anesthesia Care Team and ensure that the optimal safety of the patient is maintained.

What are the types of anesthesia?

• Local Anaesthesia: It is used to numb only a small region where the medical procedures are being performed and the patient is awake and alert during the procedure.
• Conscious or Intravenous (IV) Sedation: A mild sedative is used to relax the patient and relieve their pain. The patient is awake during the procedure but might have difficulty remembering it afterwards.
• Regional Anesthesia: This blocks the pain in an entire region of the body, such as the arm or a leg. It is mostly used during deliveries as an epidural.
• General Anaesthesia: This acts on the entire body and the patient falls unconscious and stays under during the entire length of the procedure.

About the Department

The Department of Anaesthesiology at Neelkanth Hospital is an advanced state of the art patient focused department that is responsible for the delivery of anaesthetic care to all patients. The department has many well versed and experienced anesthesiologists whose aim is to provide the patients with optimum care, not just in the operation theatres but also outside it by optimizing the preoperative preparation of the patient and providing comprehensive care during the postoperative period.

The department is equipped with high end anaesthesia workstations to provide anaesthesia for long durations for cancer patients and for long lasting surgeries. Anaesthesiologists keep an electronic record of the entire procedure- pre anaesthetic assessment, intra operative monitoring and procedures are being practiced for the patient. This data is further integrated in the Hospital Information System.

The Anaesthesiology team is composed of Senior Consultants, Consultants, Physicians, Surgeons and Nurses to help optimize the patient care.

The department provides protocolled anaesthesia to ICU and all departments of the hospital like General Surgery, Obstetric and Gynaecology, IVF, ENT, Orthopaedics, Urology, Paediatric Surgery, GI surgery and Trauma centre. The anesthesia recovery is maintained using multi-parameter monitors, patient controlled analgesia (PCA)/opioid infusion pumps, anaesthesia machine and defibrillator machine for emergency requirements.

What services does the anesthesiology department at Neelkanth Hospital provide?

• All surgical procedures require some form of anaesthesia, whether surgery is open or laparoscopic.
• Cancer patients require anaesthesia at different times over the course of the treatment.
• Interventional pain management is performed in the pain management clinics.
• General anaesthesia and conscious sedation are used to perform outdoor procedures like endoscopies
• Local anaesthesia is required for dental procedures, Radiotherapy and Interventional Radiology.
• It also provides acute and chronic pain services and obstetric analgesia services.