Johns Hopkins Anesthesiologist Eugenie Heitmiller, MD, credits the safety of anesthesia to better medicines, advanced surgical techniques, and new technology that enables physicians closely to monitor a variety of vital signs. Anesthesiologists provide pain medication to ensure your comfort during surgery and make informed medical judgments to protect you. Their role extends beyond the operating and recovery rooms. They are also involved in post-operative pain management, including diagnosing and treating acute and chronic problems. Anesthesia, the administration of pain relief, takes many forms.
General anesthesia renders a person unconscious so that the entire body feels no pain.
Regional anesthesia involves injection of local anesthetic around a bundle of nerves to numb the area of your body that requires surgery. For example, regional anesthesia in the form of an epidural is used to numb the entire abdomen for a caesarian section. Local anesthesia, is injected into the skin and tissues where a medical procedure is going to be performed. It anesthetizes only a specific location. It would be used, for example, to anesthetize a surface wound before stitching.