When William T. G. Morton held the first successful public demonstration of ether anesthesia for alleviating the pain of surgery on 16 October, 1846, history was created in the operating room of Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston.
Anesthesia as a specialty and anesthesiologists as physicians have come a long way from the times of ether. Today anesthesiologists are highly trained physicians who provide a whole range of care for patients, not just in the operating theater but in many areas of patient care. The present day anesthesiologist is involved in preoperative optimization, management of high dependency and intensive care units, cardiopulmonary resuscitation, acute and chronic pain management, emergency medicine, disaster management and patient transfers between hospitals. Anesthesia today is very safe, with a mortality rate of less than 1 in 250,000 directly related to anesthesia. This specialty is deservingly referred to as the lifeline of modern medicine and as the leading specialty in quality improvement in medicine.
To commemorate this important day in medical history, the Department of Anesthesiology, ICU and Perioperative Medicine at HMC and Division of Cardiothoracic Anesthesia in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Heart Hospital would like to invite you to a series of discussions on the specialty of anesthesia, its past, present and future.
