Articles related to Anesthesiology

Pandemic-era telemedicine exceptions that currently allow telehealth prescription of Schedule II narcotics and stimulants without an initial in-person evaluation are to be ended on May 11.

The number and quality of available studies on ketamine plus psychotherapy are limited because of the newness of the therapy. However, in the 4 studies deemed eligible for review, ketamine plus psychotherapy—regardless of protocol—was associated with significant symptom reduction.

According to the findings of the study, gabapentin should not be used on a regular basis. Individualization is required, based on the type of pain and the risk of delirium. If gabapentin is used to control postoperative pain, it must be closely monitored for the development of delirium. Low-dose opioids, along with nonpharmacologic pain management strategies such as postoperative physical therapy and mobilization, can still be used safely in the study population. Rather than relying on a single medication, a more holistic approach to postoperative pain control in the hospital setting is required.

The literature on chronic pain and stigma was reviewed by a group of academics from Sapienza University of Rome, Italy, who published their findings in the journal Pain and Therapy. Perhaps most unexpectedly, they discovered that stigma surrounding pain persists even in clinical settings, resulting in clinicians’ inadequate evaluations of patients’ pain, doubt about the reality of their suffering, and lower pain ratings. These factors frequently result in inadequate treatment of pain and a propensity to believe that it is solely a psychological disorder.

These specialties had the highest proportion of doctors still making student loan payments, per the 2022 Medscape report: Emergency Medicine (31%) Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (31%) Pediatrics (31%) Neurology (28%) Otolaryngology (28%) Family Medicine (28%) For the least debt-burdened: Pulmonary Medicine (10%) Public Health & Preventive Medicine (11%) Rheumatology (12%) Diabetes & Endocrinology (15%) Dermatology (16%) Cardiology (16%)

“The perfect storm of lazy MDs, an incompetent ASA and the dramatic taming of the traditionally wild surgical procedures and advances in anesthesia have set up the perfect stage for the aggressive takeover of the specialty by the nursing realm, where it all started in the first space. Today’s MD anesthesiologists have ceded control of the specialty and are rightly a footnote in history—not ‘misunderstood’ at all, as Dr. Sherer would have us believe.”