Friday, November 2, 2012

The Power of Celebration

Celebration, and giving thanks, means telling the Universe, "I like this!". This primes the pump for more abundance and joy to follow in your life.

I celebrate each mile stone as Dcotors With Reiki is growing. A lot of people are going to make their lives better by having access to the resources on Twitter, the blog, and the Facebook Page.

Today is a day of poignant celebration here on the Big Island: it is the last day of conference for us anesthesiologists. Soon it will be time for us to leave. There is a energy of hope, of sincere interest in wanting to do what is best for our patients that unites us. All of the anesthesiologist, young and old, most of them older, want to spend the morning in session, learning from the five experts who give four lectures each,'what is right'?

Here are the big anesthesiologists who are making changes in the world today:


  • Edward R. Mariano : regional anesthesia expert. Can numb any part of the body for surgery, even placing a small catheter near the nerve that will sense pain after surgery at home. Can go abroad and do cleft palate repair under local anesthesia, which is safer forthe kids. Avoiding general anesthesia is showing some benefits on cognitive function at the extremes of age, and also showing a trends for less metastasis (morphine tends to increase them, studies point out). He uses ultrasound imaging to guide his needle, as well as a rock-solid knowledge of anatomical landmarks for blocks. He is at Stanford, and you might want to research his work to explore your options for regional anesthesia before surgery for you.
  • Piyush Patel: Neuroanesthesia. Has found 'standard of care' might not be best for patients, and challenges it. He gives guidance on bloop pressure and heart rate parameters to protect the brain during surgery. He also gives information of nerve monitoring, and awake neurosurgery techniques, which are state-of-the-art.
  • Robert S. Lagasse: quality and compliance with regulations. Can talk 'alphabet soup' with the best of them --SCIP, P4P, NYSQUIP, and more. Has taken the fear out of self-reporting errors and near-misses for the overall improvement in patient safety at Yale. 
  • Sueanne Daves: anesthesiologist, cardiac anesthesiologist, pediatric ICU intensivist, pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist, and now pioneer in anesthesia for the preterm and low birthweight infant. Her lecture on the history of cardiac anesthesia was inspiring: so many leaders were told they were nuts in the early days! One, Taussig, a rare woman physician in her time, wanted to help blue babies live. She directed work on dogs. The vivisectionists were ready to shut her down. At the next vivisectionist luncheon. Taussig marched one hundred patients who had formerly been blue, young to old, across the stage, and asked, 'any questions?'. Sueanne is forging communication between NICU intensivists, perinatologists, and anesthesia for the betterment of the sickest children on the planet.
  • Brendan Carvalho: OB anesthesia, new changes for safety and comfort of the patient. Thoughtful frank discussion on the challenges of the obese mom in labor. He even holds mom's hands in c-sections like me! Again, at Stanford, and a wonderful contributor to the are of patients giving birth. One day I might approach him about Reiki in the Obstetric context--I think he will 'get it ...when the time is right I shall.
It is my hope that even without energy medicine, there is a definite trend in anesthesiology today. Although faced with challenge of decreasing reimbursement and increasing burden of regulation to our specialty, we are at the doorway to a new era in the treatment of our patients. Gone are the 'new! Improved! You must do it this way!' Talks. Now are the, we are rethinking this strategy...questioning the status quo...and learning how to apply 'do no harm' to the long term health of our patient, not just 'getting them off the OR table and discharged to home' strategy any more. 

The Light is Shining for tomorrow!

Namaste,

Reiki Doc