Essential Anesthesia
From Science to Practice

This is a concise, accessible introduction to the essentials of anesthesia, suitable for medical students.

This is a concise, accessible introduction to the essentials of anesthesia, suitable for medical students, junior doctors, nurse anesthetists, and all operating theatre staff. It provides a brief, broad overview of the science and practice of anesthesia without overwhelming the reader with intimidating detail. The first section of the book describes the evaluation of the patient, the different approaches to anesthesia, and the postoperative care of the patient in pain. The next section introduces the essentials of physiology and pharmacology and their role in understanding the principles of anesthesia. The final section presents a step by step description of clinical cases, ranging from the simplest to the most complex. These clinical vignettes give a very real introduction to the practicalities of anesthesia and will give the non-anesthetist physician an idea of how to prepare a patient for a surgical procedure.

Introduction
Part I. Clinical Management: 1. Preoperative evaluation
2. Airway management
3. Vascular access and fluid management
4. Regional anesthesia
5. General anesthesia
6. Postoperative care
7. Monitoring
8. Anesthesia machine
Part II. Applied Physiology and Pharmacology: 9. Anesthesia and the cardiovascular system
10. Anesthesia and the lung
11. Anesthesia and other systems
12. Pharmacology
Part III. Clinical Cases: Case 1. Breast biopsy under conscious sedation
Case 2. Carpal tunnel release under bier block
Case 3. Cataract removal under MAC
Case 4. Cesarean Section under regional anesthesia
Case 5. Gastric bypass under general anesthesia
Case 6. AV shunt placement under peripheral nerve block
Case 7. Open repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm in a patient with coronary artery disease.