This short film, “The Story of Anesthesia,” is intended to help celebrate CSA’s 75 years as a professional society representing the medical specialty of Anesthesiology.
Lovely short about anesthesia and I'd like to make a point about medical students being responsible for ether since there were no Anesthesiologist in 1923. By 1923, there were 19 Nurse led anesthesia schools in the United States and Alice Magaw, a nurse anesthetist, was well on her way to completing over 14,000 anesthetic procedures without a single recorded death. In 1899, Magaw had already published a scientific article in the Northwestern Lancet about the role of nurse anesthetists at the Mayo Clinic. In addition, 1923 was the year when Agatha Hodgins, the nurse anesthetist who pioneered nitrous oxide anesthesia with surgeon George Crile, first suggested the creation of a national organization for nurse anesthetists at a meeting of the Alumnae Association of the Lakeside Hospital School of Anesthesia, established in 1915. Nurses have provided anesthesia since the Civil War. When discussing the history of Anesthesia, it is important that we recognize where we came from considering nurse anesthetists were the first healthcare providers dedicated to the specialty of Anesthesiology.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment! Although some physicians like Crawford Long (1815-1878) administered surgical anesthesia well before the Civil War, it is true that non-physicians (i.e. nurses, medical students, even patients’ family members!), as well as interns and junior surgeons, predominated in the anesthesia workforce in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was the era when open-drop ether, a rudimentary anesthetic modality by today’s standards, was the standard of practice. Nurses were indeed prominent practitioners of anesthesia in the U.S. since the late 19th century. Alice Magaw (1860-1928) and Agatha Hodgins (1877-1945) are prime examples. Organized physician anesthesia in the U.S. began in 1905 with the creation of the Long Island Society of Anesthetists, the earliest precursor of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. But the first national physician anesthesia organization was the American Association of Anesthetists (AAA), founded in 1912 by physicians like James Gwathmey (1862-1944) and Francis McMechan (1879-1939). The video’s mention of the lack of an anesthesiologist in 1923 is not meant to imply that there was an absence of physicians administering anesthesia during that year, but rather to suggest that the numbers were still low. As increasing numbers of physicians specialized in anesthesiology, they began to pioneer scientific advancements that modernized anesthetic practice and transformed it into a medical specialty. The history of anesthesia and anesthesiology in the U.S. is a rich and nuanced one, and both physicians and nurses have contributed to it in different ways.
P r o m o S M 😇
"Promosm"
Lovely short about anesthesia and I'd like to make a point about medical students being responsible for ether since there were no Anesthesiologist in 1923. By 1923, there were 19 Nurse led anesthesia schools in the United States and Alice Magaw, a nurse anesthetist, was well on her way to completing over 14,000 anesthetic procedures without a single recorded death. In 1899, Magaw had already published a scientific article in the Northwestern Lancet about the role of nurse anesthetists at the Mayo Clinic. In addition, 1923 was the year when Agatha Hodgins, the nurse anesthetist who pioneered nitrous oxide anesthesia with surgeon George Crile, first suggested the creation of a national organization for nurse anesthetists at a meeting of the Alumnae Association of the Lakeside Hospital School of Anesthesia, established in 1915. Nurses have provided anesthesia since the Civil War. When discussing the history of Anesthesia, it is important that we recognize where we came from considering nurse anesthetists were the first healthcare providers dedicated to the specialty of Anesthesiology.
Thank you for this thoughtful comment! Although some physicians like Crawford Long (1815-1878) administered surgical anesthesia well before the Civil War, it is true that non-physicians (i.e. nurses, medical students, even patients’ family members!), as well as interns and junior surgeons, predominated in the anesthesia workforce in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This was the era when open-drop ether, a rudimentary anesthetic modality by today’s standards, was the standard of practice.
Nurses were indeed prominent practitioners of anesthesia in the U.S. since the late 19th century. Alice Magaw (1860-1928) and Agatha Hodgins (1877-1945) are prime examples. Organized physician anesthesia in the U.S. began in 1905 with the creation of the Long Island Society of Anesthetists, the earliest precursor of the American Society of Anesthesiologists. But the first national physician anesthesia organization was the American Association of Anesthetists (AAA), founded in 1912 by physicians like James Gwathmey (1862-1944) and Francis McMechan (1879-1939). The video’s mention of the lack of an anesthesiologist in 1923 is not meant to imply that there was an absence of physicians administering anesthesia during that year, but rather to suggest that the numbers were still low.
As increasing numbers of physicians specialized in anesthesiology, they began to pioneer scientific advancements that modernized anesthetic practice and transformed it into a medical specialty. The history of anesthesia and anesthesiology in the U.S. is a rich and nuanced one, and both physicians and nurses have contributed to it in different ways.