Care of patient undergoing general anesthesia Essay

Care of patient undergoing general anesthesia - Essay Example In this assignment a case study approach has been taken to identify different anesthesia related activities and their rationale which will be corroborated to examine whether these activities are based on evidence from scientific literature on anesthesia. This is a case of a 40-year-old female who had been admitted for undergoing laparoscopic cholecystectomy to the hospital. It was decided that the patient will under the surgery undergo the surgery under general anesthesia. This patient was found to be having no associated medical disease, and the preoperative investigations revealed that she has optimal medical condition to undergo anesthesia. Since anesthesia and elective operations should not proceed until the patient is in optimal medical condition, through the preoperative medical tests it had been demonstrated that she has no significant perioperative risks, it was decided that it would be safe to proceed (Adams et al., 1998). In the operating room, before subjecting the patient to anesthesia, all the equipments must be tested for safety in that they are in the right condition of use. The anesthetic assistant is supposed to help the anesthesiologist in the operating room in major cases, and he hardly has time to check these in the equipment supplied. Therefore, one of the important roles of the anesthetic assistant to check and make sure that the equipments used for anesthesia are in a condition, where no catastrophe will happen (May et al., 2007). In inhalational anesthesia, a oxygen and nitrous oxide mixture is inhaled. Liquid oxygen storage temperature must be checked. The only reliable way to determine residual volume of nitrous oxide is to weigh the cylinder. The assistant must record those. The pin index safety system must be examined. The role of the assistant is to check medical gas systems thoroughly so medical gas depletion or supply line misconnection is detected or prevented. It is also important to arrange an emergency