Anaesthesia
Anaesthesia
It’s been over one and a half century since, for the first time in 1846 in Boston, W. Morton used ether as an anaesthetic. Since then many amazing achievements have taken place, in the specialist field of Anaesthesiology. Even though, during the 1970’s, the probability of a serious complication during anaesthesia was approximately 1 out of 10.000, today it is strikingly lower at 1 out of 250.000, having at the same time many effective ways of countering the complication.
Thousands of surgeries are performed daily in our country and anaesthesia is administered for each one of those operations. Thousands of patients trust what is worth the most, their health and life, to health professionals, with the hope of improvement.
The fear of anaesthesia is a common and justified emotion, for all patients about to be operated, because narcosis appears as a “plunge in the deep” in the patient’s mind. However, the state-of-the-art equipment we have today can continuously register blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, carbon dioxide levels, the degree of muscle relaxation and more. Through a complex computer system (monitoring) and special alarms, the Anaesthesiologist is directly aware of all the basic functions of the patient and has the opportunity to interfere.
Additionally, the sophisticated anaesthetic drugs achieve a smooth introduction for the patient to anaesthesia, stable analgesia, amnesia and muscle paralysis during operation, and smooth resuscitation at the end of the operation. Having modern analgesics, sedatives, suppressants, muscle relaxants and anaesthetic drugs at their disposal, the Director Anaesthesiologist and his team, ensure an excellent operation with the patient regaining consciousness immediately, without pain or any significant discomfort.
The type of anaesthesia for thyroid/parathyroid operations is, basically, general anaesthesia. Depending on the patient’s condition, local anaesthesia is used for some parathyroidectomy operations.
The duration of the anaesthesia is just a few minutes longer than the operation’s. The preoperative, intraoperative and postoperative care provided by the Anaesthesiologist, will answer all patients’ questions and will ensure a rapid and painless resuscitation.
Over the past years, there have been many instances when patients described the difficulties they had, in previous operations in other hospitals, regarding anaesthesia. Usually they refer to cases of throwing up and delay in regaining consciousness. First of all, I advise those patients to share those experiences with our Anaesthesiology team. Then, I reassure them, as – after so many years – I have seen a lot of similar cases, in our operations, having a smooth anaesthesia and regaining consciousness. This is due to many reasons, such as our state-of-the-art anaesthetic medication and equipment in combination with the vast experience of our sensitised Anaesthesiologist.
Nowadays, the operating room is a place with a high degree of safety, where, assisted by the state-of-the-art technological equipment and the good teamwork of the members of the Doctors Team, successful operations are bound to be routine processes.
More specifically, in the Center of Excellence Thyroid & Parathyroid Surgery, Mr Karvounis has permanently included Director Anaesthesiologists, with multi-year experience and specific scientific interest in Anaesthesia and Endocrine Surgery. During the last decade they have completed together, with absolute success, several thousands of operations, having effectively faced high-risk patients (elderly, greatly obese, with serious cardiopulmonary issues, neurological diseases, etc.).
Finally, the U.S. imported, High Definition system of Video Laryngoscopy, provides the ability to our well-trained Anaesthesiologists, to confirm the perfect vocal cord mobility immediately (real-time view of the airway/ vocal cords) at the end of the surgery.