Has anaesthesia improved?

Abstract

I was recently asked the question: How has anaesthesia improved? This assumes that anaesthesia has, in fact, improved, and if one compares techniques from the early years of anaesthesia in 1846 then of course it has improved a great deal. However, one has to ask if anaesthesia is safer, as this is obviously our ultimate objective, and I think the answer to this is “it depends�. It depends on which country and continent one is referring to. Hodges et al performed a survey in Uganda, whilst teaching at a refresher course in that country, and found some alarming results, which are published in Anaesthesia in 2007. They found that 23% of anaesthetists have the facilities to deliver safe anaesthesia to an adult, 13% to deliver safe anaesthesia to a child and 6% to deliver safe anaesthesia for a caesarean section.