A faculty advocate for routine intraoperative brain electrical activity monitoring

WA Kofke is a member of the faculty of the Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care at the University of Pennsylvania.  He is a strong advocate for the routine use of brain electrical activity monitors such as BIS for the management of general anesthetics.  He recently published, in the Etherway Blog, a summary of how he uses the BIS for the care of his patients.  His summary starts

"I Use The BIS Monitor For A Lot More Than Just Preventing Awareness!

I like knowing how deeply anesthetized my patients are,  not just that they are unaware. How much a patient is unaware as a continuum is a lot more important that the binary notion of awake vs asleep.  I do this with a BIS monitor (and could do the same with Hospira’s PSA monitor) and make lots of decisions based on it and I think provide better care for the effort. My reasons for saying this follow."

Read the rest of his discussion at http://mkeamy.typepad.com/anesthesiacaucus/2007/11/i-use-the-bis-m.html

I like knowing how deeply anesthetized my patients are,  not just that they are unaware. How much a patient is unaware as a continuum is a lot more important that the binary notion of awake vs asleep.  I do this with a BIS monitor (and could do the same with Hospira’s PSA monitor) and make lots of decisions based on it and I think provide better care for the effort. My reasons for saying this follow."

Read the rest of his discussion at http://mkeamy.typepad.com/anesthesiacaucus/2007/11/i-use-the-bis-m.html