During the coronavirus pandemic, we were reminded just how precious a resource ventilators are in hospitals.
Some Bay Area surgeons are increasingly using a technique that does not require patients to be on a ventilator at all – because they are awake.
Dr. Praveen Mummaneni, vice chair of the department of neurosurgery at UCSF, uses the technique for lower back surgeries especially in older patients at higher risk of becoming delirious after having general anesthetic.
"The reason that we picked doing these surgeries awake is because some patients have problems recovering from general anesthetic and we found that if we were doing the surgery with a spinal anesthetic and a mild sedative and no ventilator, that they were waking up very quickly, mobilizing very quickly and leaving the hospital very quickly," Mummaneni said.
He told KCBS Radio's "As Prescribed" on Thursday he's recently been doing the procedure on several physicians.
"They know that the COVID pandemic has created a shortage of ventilators, especially that happened acutely in the summer of 2020," Mummaneni added. "So, several physicians have been asking for the procedure to be done awake because they want to avoid the ventilators altogether."
It's not for everyone – especially those with high levels of anxiety.
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