Virginia Apgar was an American physician, obstetrical anesthesiologist and medical researcher, best known as the inventor of the Apgar score, a way to quickly assess the health of a newborn child immediately after birth in order to combat infant mortality. In 1952, she developed the 10-point Apgar score to assist physicians and nurses in assessing the status of newborns. Given at one minute and five minutes after birth, the Apgar test measures a child's breathing, skin color, reflexes, motion, and heart rate. A friend said, "She probably did more than any other physician to bring the problem of birth defects out of back rooms." She was a leader in the fields of anesthesiology and teratology, and introduced obstetrical considerations to the established field of neonatology.
Anesthesiology or anaesthesiology is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, and pain medicine. A physician specialized in anesthesiology is called an anesthesiologist, anaesthesiologist, or anaesthetist, depending on the country. In some countries, the terms are synonymous, while in other countries, they refer to different positions and anesthetist is only used for non-physicians, such as nurse anesthetists.
A nurse anesthetist is an advanced practice nurse who administers anesthesia for surgery or other medical procedures. Nurse anesthetists (NA's) administer or participate in administration of anesthesia services in 107 countries, working with or without anesthesiologists. Because of different historical backgrounds, anesthetist responsibilities and roles vary widely between countries. Depending on the locality, their role may be limited to intraoperative care during anesthesia itself or may also extend before and after. The International Federation of Nurse Anesthetists was established in 1989 as a forum for developing standards of education, practice, and a code of ethics.
A Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist (CRNA) is a type of advanced practice nurse who administers anesthesia in the United States. CRNAs account for approximately half of the anesthesia providers in the United States and are the main providers (80%) of anesthesia in rural America. Historically, nurses have been providing anesthesia care to patients for over 160 years, dating back to the American Civil War (1861–1865). The CRNA credential was formally established in 1956. CRNA schools issue a Doctorate of nursing anesthesia degree to nurses who have completed a program in anesthesia, which is 3 years in length.
The American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) is an educational, research and scientific association of physicians organized to raise the standards of the medical practice of anesthesiology and to improve patient care.
In the United States, anesthesia can be administered by physician anesthesiologists, an anesthesiologist assistant, or nurse anesthetist.
Emery Neal Brown is an American statistician, computational neuroscientist, and anesthesiologist. He is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and a practicing anesthesiologist at MGH. At MIT he is the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and professor of computational neuroscience, the associate director of the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science, and the Director of the Harvard–MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology.
Harold Randall Griffith was a Canadian anesthesiologist and a leader in the fields of anesthesiology.
David L. Reich is an American academic anesthesiologist, who has been President & Chief Operating Officer of The Mount Sinai Hospital, and President of Mount Sinai Queens, since October 2013.
Geriatric anesthesia is the branch of medicine that studies anesthesia approach in elderly.
Scott S. Reuben is an American anesthesiologist who falsified data heralding the benefits of the Pfizer pain medication Celebrex while downplaying its negative side effects.
The American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology (AANA), previously named the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists, is a professional association for nurse anesthetists in the United States. The organization states that it has a membership of more than 62,000 and represents approximately 90% of CRNAs in the United States. The AANA headquarters is currently located in Rosemont, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
Neurosurgical anesthesiology, neuroanesthesiology, or neurological anesthesiology is a subspecialty of anesthesiology devoted to the total perioperative care of patients before, during, and after neurological surgeries, including surgeries of the central (CNS) and peripheral nervous systems (PNS). The field has undergone extensive development since the 1960s correlating with the ability to measure intracranial pressure (ICP), cerebral blood flow (CBF), and cerebral metabolic rate (CMR).
Certified anesthesiologist assistants (CAAs) are master’s degree level non-physician anesthesia care providers. CAAs are members of the anesthesia care team as described by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA). This designation must be disambiguated from the Certified Clinical Anesthesia Assistant (CCAA) designation conferred by the Canadian Society of Respiratory Therapists. All CAAs possess a baccalaureate degree, and complete an intensive didactic and clinical program at a postgraduate level. CAAs are trained in the delivery and maintenance of most types of anesthesia care as well as advanced patient monitoring techniques. The goal of CAA education is to guide the transformation of student applicants into competent clinicians.
Chi Ho Ban Tsui is a Canadian anesthesiologist known for medical innovation in the field of anesthesia. Examples include describing the Tsui Test and developing the StimuLong Sono-Tsui for ease of pediatric epidural placement. Recently along with his son, Dr. Jonathan Jenkin Tsui, Dr. Tsui developed a catheter-over-needle kit allowing a continuous catheter placement to be performed with the ease of a single shot during peripheral nerve blocks.
Kathryn Ann Kelly "Kelly" McQueen is an American anesthesiologist and global health expert. She currently practices anesthesiology at the UW Health University Hospital in Madison, Wisconsin and serves as the chair for the Department of Anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public health.
Jerome Michael Adams is an American anesthesiologist and a former vice admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps who served as the 20th surgeon general of the United States from September 5, 2017, until January 20, 2021. Prior to becoming Surgeon General, he served as the Indiana state health commissioner, from 2014 to 2017.
Robert Marvin Epstein (1928-2024) was an American anesthesiologist, a member of the National Academy of Medicine, and the Harold Carron Professor of Anesthesiology (emeritus) at the University of Virginia.
Susane Nabulindo Masakhwe is a Kenyan consultant anesthesiologist at the Kenyatta National Referral Hospital. Her specialty is pediatric anesthesiology, a specialty where, in 2014, there were only five qualified Kenyans in the field. She is one of a very small number of female pediatric anesthesiologists in the country. She also concurrently serves as a lecturer in the Department of Anesthesia at the University of Nairobi, Kenya's largest public university.
George Alexander Mashour is an American anesthesiologist.
