What happens if a patient wakes up during an operation?

Question

What happens if a patient wakes up during an operation? Perhaps because they werent given enough anesthetic or something like that, and they wake up during a crucial part of the surgery. What is done buy the surgeon and his/her assistants? (Idk the proper medical term, if there is one) And what happens to the patient? I know that it will be different depending on the operation, but try to give examples.

Thanks.

Answer 1

It's called anesthetic awareness, and anesthesiologists are aware of it (pun intended).  There are no guarantees in medicine, and awareness is a rare but real possibility with general anesthesia.

There are cases where it is more likely to happen, such as trauma.  If the patient is extremely unstable, the drugs we use to keep him unaware may be enough to kill him (which would be bad).  We do give midazolam (Versed) or scopolomine in these cases to minimize the chance of awareness.

Anesthesia must be balanced against surgical stimulation, which varies continuously throughout the case.  There are times when the surgeon isn't hurting the pt much, and we have to turn the gas down a bit (or risk big drops in blood pressure, heart rate, etc).  If the surgeon does something that hurts the patient suddenly when the gas is low, the pt will react (movement if not paralyzed, increased BP/HR)  Even with these changes that occur frequently, awareness is rare.  (We constantly have to tell the surgeons that movement does NOT equal awareness, and some of them STILL don't get it!)

We monitor end-tidal concentrations of anesthetic gases, and know the levels that reliably prevent awareness.  Combined with some midazolam, we're pretty good at keeping awareness away.  Many people don't remember waking up when the surgery is finished, and start remembering things only in the recovery room.

There is also a monitor called BIS, which is a processed EEG tracing that claims to prevent awareness, but studies show that it is less reliable than end-tidal gas monitoring.  (It tends to react after the fact, not warn you ahead of time)

BTW, the surgeon doesn't do anything but complain.  The anesthesiologist takes care of the situation.

Answer 2

A man I knew had a motorcycle accident many years ago. During surgery he woke up and I believe he screamed in pain. Because he was unconscious when he was brought in, they had no idea he was a heroin addict. The anesthetic doesn't work as well if there are already other drugs in the body, they then doubled the dosage and tried to finish his surgery quickly.

Answer 3

when it happens,the anesthesiologist gives an additional dose of versed. this causes the patient to forget the previous several minutes,and the paitent isnt even aware that it ever happend

Answer 4

h**l.

Answer 5

I've had many operation on my back ' but haven't ever wake up during the surgery thank god .My oldest bother said that he wake up during a surgery before,He could hear the doctors talking to each other.They had a TV show on a while back about people waking up during surgery. They said that it was h**l , because they could fill the knife cutting them .They tried to let the doctors know but couldn't move any part of there body so that the doctor would even know if they was a wake or not.