BMJ 1998;316:1827 ( 13 June )

Letters

Audit Commission tackles anaesthetic services

    Anaesthesia should remain physician based service.
    Non-physician anaesthetists may free up consultants to concentrate on patients requiring special attention
    Quoted paper did not say that participation of nurses makes adverse outcomes more common
    Investment is required to increase number of consultant anaesthetists

Anaesthesia should remain physician based service.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR---We read with interest the articles 1 2 that you recently published in response to the Audit Commission's Anaesthesia under Examination,3 which revisits the topic of nurse anaesthetists. We trained as anaesthetists in the United Kingdom but now work in the United States.

Nurse anaesthetists in the United States always work under the direction of a physician and, despite our initial reservations, we have all been pleasantly surprised by the experience of working with this highly qualified group of professionals. Minimal requirements for entry to the training programmes of two to three years are a nursing or basic science college degree and one year's experience in critical care nursing. Fear of unemployment in recent years has produced a sharp fall in applications to anaesthesia residency programmes.4 Most programmes have downsized, and a few have closed altogether. Rather than appoint more consultants, many hospitals have recruited nurse anaesthetists to meet . . . [Full text of this article]
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Relevant Article

Audit Commission tackles anaesthetic services
Andrew Smith
BMJ 1998 316: 3-4. [Extract] [Full Text]

Rapid Responses:

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NURSE ANAESTHETISTS
Zachary Whitewood-Moores
bmj.com, 26 Oct 1998 [Full text]
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bmj.com, 29 Oct 1998 [Full text]
Re: Re: NURSE ANAESTHETISTS
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bmj.com, 17 Apr 2000 [Full text]
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Nancy A Petersen
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