Specific rules currently restrict the amount of liposuction and injection of local anesthetic, require OSHA regulated levels of sterilization, expand requirements for office records and surgical logs, require information about surgical risks and precautions, and require timely reporting of adverse incidents. Other topics which were voted in by the board include stronger patient protection standards which will face a public hearing on April 8. These also restrict office surgeries to eight hours in duration and require a doctor to be on premises or within 15 minutes travel while patients recover in the office. These changes may be influenced one way or another at this time. I would like all society members to actively support these changes which can result in improved patient care.
Improved care is what organized medicine needs to focus on now and in the future.
There is no downside with any of these proposals. Training requirements are very important with the current statistics and examples which exist. The involvement of an anesthesiologist in the office setting can directly help the surgeons geographical restrictions, as highly qualified medical physicians will still be able to care for these patients. It might also decrease surgeons malpractice premiums as several of the Board of Medicine's recent office surgery disciplinary cases have centered upon deficient anesthesia-related patient care. Anesthesiologist involvement is also the standard of care throughout the State of Florida in metropolitan hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers, and it should be in the office setting.