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Chapter 18: Guidelines for the Provision of Anaesthesia Services for Cardiac and Thoracic Procedures 2021
Each unit should have a designated clinical lead (see glossary) anaesthetist for thoracic anaesthetic services. This should be recognised in their job plan and they should be involved in multidisciplinary service planning and governance within the unit.
Chapter 18: Guidelines on the Provision of Anaesthesia Services for Cardiac Procedures 2025
Specialist anaesthetists should be involved in the discussion of referrals and planning when conducted in the setting of a multidisciplinary team. This involvement should be recognised in job plans. Anaesthesia for complex adult congenital heart procedures should be undertaken by suitably trained adult congenital anaesthetists. Appropriate support from ACHD cardiologists and other cardiologists with suitable expertise in ACHD is necessary.33
I recently listened to two anaesthetists talking in a coffee-shop queue. One was of a certain age and clearly exasperated at having to contemplate the supposed burnout levels in my generation of anaesthetists in training. He simply couldn’t understand it. After all, in his day they worked hundred hour weeks! ‘Bloody snowflakes’, he reflected. The other nodded gravely.
‘Snowflake’ is a term commonly wielded by our elders to bludgeon what they deem to be a fragile, over-sensitive and under-resilient youth of today. A people unable to cope with life. It does however require a certain amount of historical amnesia to use this slight without some irony catching in the throat. Did they not enjoy rock bottom housing prices, free higher education and high levels of job security, only to then preside over their decimation?
Anaesthesia and Clinical Leaders Meeting
23 March 2023