Anesthesia for Cosmetic Surgery: the 17 year ‘overnight’ success story of PK anesthesia continues

When it rains, it pours.
No, not Morton salt…PK anesthesia’s 17 year ‘overnight’ success story.

Last week was a banner week.

I submitted, within the requested deadline, my chapter, Anesthesia for Cosmetic Surgery in the Post Bariatric Patient, for Strauch B, Herman CK: ‘The Encyclopedia of Body Sculpting in the Massive Weight Loss Patient.’ Thieme Medical Publishers, New York, due out this year!

My interview with Connie Jennings in Plastic Surgery Practice came out in the July 2009 issue in the same week as my letter to the editor of the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation (APSF) Newsletter Spring 2009 (see ‘About PK Information for Physicians,’ Letters to the Editor). In addition to these wonderful things, Christian Apfel just had Nausea and Vomiting after Office-based Anesthesia chapter published in August 2009 Current Opinion in Anaesthesiology, again citing my seminal 1999 PK paper for its 0.6% PONV rate!

When I called the legendary Dr. Ron Wender, past president of the CA Medical Board (among many other honors), to congratulate him on assuming The Doctors’ Company director’s position vacated by the late Dr. Ann Lofsky, he invited me to give a PK talk to his anesthesia residents at the upscale Cedars Sinai Hospital of Los Angeles. His program is affiliated with the UCLA residency chaired by Dr. Patricia (don’t call her ‘Patty’) Kapur who trained under my chief, Dr. C. Philip Larson, Jr. Those of you who may have seen my book, ‘Anesthesia in Cosmetic Surgery,’ may have noted ‘Phil’ was kind enough to write a very nice introduction for it.

Dr. Wender also informed me that he was on the Board of Directors of the AAAASF, the plastic surgeons’ office surgery accreditation organization. With a great deal of luck, this may give me a chance to present my case for brain monitoring to improve office-based anesthesia safety to their Board.

Quite a week. When it rains, it pours. Stay tuned.