STRANGE DAZE: Wrong Assumptions

Every October, the American Society of Anesthesiologists [the ASA] hosts the largest medical specialty meeting of its kind for thousands and thousands of anesthesiologists from around the world. This year’s meeting is being held in San Francisco from October 13^th to 17^th.

To recognize the importance of anesthesia in the evolution of surgery, and to commemorate the first public demonstration of surgical anesthesia administered to a patient undergoing surgery [by William Morton on October 16^th, 1846], called “World Anesthesia Day”, I present a different episode of the Strange Daze podcast each day of the meeting.

Today’s Episode is Wrong Assumptions. It’s a true story about a healthy, 37-year-old woman who comes into the hospital expecting a routine delivery of her third baby and ends up in a coma. How can a routine case to go so wrong? In about a million and a half different way. This is just one of them.