Her husband says nobody warned them of danger. Deaths from anesthesia in a hospital or outpatient surgical centers are extremely rare. Hosts of specialists are on hand to try to revive patients with problems. But more surgery is moving to private offices, sometimes performed by physicians with little experience in handling powerful sedating drugs and little equipment to save patients who get into trouble, says Dr. John Neeld, president of the American Society of Anesthesiology. Nobody counts how many deaths or injuries result from office-administered anesthesia.
Experts believe the overall risk is small, considering the number of procedures in doctors' offices.
Clusters of other deaths are moving New Jersey, Florida and California toward the first safety regulations for certain office surgeries. He calls the deaths preventable, and is urging malpractice carriers and more state medical boards to investigate. In most places, no laws restrict surgeries in private offices by licensed doctors, regardless of their surgical or anesthesia training. Even when patients pick a skilled surgeon, operating in a private office means there is no backup for the rare patient with problems, says Dr. Charles Cote of the University of Illinois, Chicago, a pediatric anesthesiologist. By the time the surgeon got the woman to an emergency room, her temperature had soared to a killer 107 degrees.