Patient Awareness

There has been much publicity in the media lately about patient awareness during surgery. The actual incidence is very small- less that 0.1 to 0.2 %.

Potential risk factors for awareness during general anesthesia are people with a history of substance abuse, people who have had a general anesthetic in the past who had awareness, people who have been told that during prior general anesthesia there was difficulty passing a breathing tube, chronic pain patients on narcotics, people having emergency surgery for trauma, people having cardiac surgery and women having C-sections.

Our providers visit and interview people prior to surgery to help assess the risk for awareness and to make people aware of the potential risk of awareness should they have risk factors or conditions that might make them susceptible to awareness. For more information on patient awareness, click on links to either the American Society of Anesthesiologists or the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists.